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Portrait of The Sagrada Família

Geography · Landmarks & wonders

The Sagrada Família

begun 19 March 1882

Spain — Barcelona, the Eixample district

Antoni Gaudí's expiatory temple in Barcelona, begun in 1882 under another architect and taken over by Gaudí the following year, who spent the last decades of his life on it and died in 1926 with barely a quarter of it built. Funded by donations and still rising, it was consecrated as a basilica by Benedict XVI in 2010, and its central Tower of Jesus Christ — 172.5 m — makes it the tallest church in the world.

How to spot them

  • ▸Quiz clue: 'Gaudí', 'Eixample', 'expiatory temple', 'Nativity facade', 'catenary arch'
  • ▸A forest of stone columns branching like trees under a canopy of coloured light
  • ▸Begun in 1882 and still under construction well over a century later
  • ▸Its architect is buried in its own crypt

Key facts

Begun in 1882 by Francisco de Paula del Villar, who resigned the next year (1882)

Gaudí, then 31, took over in 1883 and transformed the design completely

Its architect devoted the last years of his life to it and is buried in its crypt

Gaudí was knocked down by a tram in June 1926 and, taken for a pauper, died three days later

Its interior columns branch like trees to carry the vaults

Gaudí worked out the loads with hanging chain models photographed and turned upside down

Three facades were planned for the Nativity, the Passion and the Glory of Christ

Only the Nativity facade was substantially finished in Gaudí's lifetime; Josep Maria Subirachs carved the angular Passion figures from 1987

Eighteen towers were planned — twelve apostles, four evangelists, the Virgin, and Christ

The central tower is deliberately kept just below the height of Montjuïc, so no work of man outtops the work of God

Consecrated as a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 (2010)

7 November 2010

Its central tower was inaugurated in June 2026, on the centenary of its architect's death (2026)

At 172.5 m it makes the building the tallest church in the world

An expiatory temple, paid for entirely by donations and ticket money rather than by the state

Which is a large part of why it has taken so long

Quick-fire facts

  • •The Nativity facade and crypt were inscribed by UNESCO in 2005 as part of 'Works of Antoni Gaudí'
  • •The building work got a formal municipal permit only in 2019, 137 years after it began
  • •Gaudí's plaster models were smashed and his workshop burned by anarchists in 1936; the design was reconstructed from fragments and photographs
  • •Computer modelling and CNC stone-cutting sharply accelerated work from the 1990s; construction passed the halfway mark in 2010
  • •The interior is glazed so that the Nativity side runs to cool greens and blues and the Passion side to reds and oranges
  • •Common misconception: it is a basilica, not a cathedral — Barcelona's cathedral is the Gothic Santa Eulàlia in the old city
  • •Another misconception: Gaudí did not design every detail that stands today; much of the upper work is interpretation of surviving models and sketches, which remains controversial

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources