Etsuro Sotoo (Fukuoka 1953)
Etsuro Sotoo arrived in Barcelona in 1978. Since he was a small boy he had been quite clear about what he wanted to do in life: to carve stone. And so he decided to come to Europe, because that is where the culture of stone is most alive. He went into La Sagrada Família by chance and decided that that was the living stone he wanted to work. That was 33 years ago. His passion was so great that on 3 November 1991 he was converted to catholicism, his work on the church had brought him into contact with all Christian symbology and discovering the church was a constant introduction to the Christian faith. He did the sculptures for the singer and musician angels on the Nativity façade, he carried out the restoration of the Roser cloister and did the decoration for the windows and their terminations in the shapes of fruits. The fruits were placed according to the season of the year: on the eastern windows, on the corner of the Nativity façade, are the fruits of summer: loquats, cherries, plums, peaches and apples. On the western windows, on the corner of the Passion façade, the winter fruits: chestnuts, persimmons, figs, almonds and pears.