Facts about La Sagrada Familia

It is located in Barcelona, a city in northeastern Spain, the second largest in the country.

Antoni Gaudi was a Catalan architect and engineer of Art Nouveau (a direction in architecture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), famous for his exceptional designs. A turning point in Gaudi's artistic life was meeting with the Barcelona industrialist Eusebi Güell, with whom the architect became friends. Güell greatly appreciated Gaudi's art and financed many of his projects. Gaudi created many buildings for him, including a hunting pavilion and a church. He also did commissions for the church and, in total, did about 20 major projects, mainly in and around Barcelona.

In his architectural work, he used parabolic arches, fantastic forms and intricate patterns, and organic shapes seen in nature. He often referred to the fluidity of the underwater world, which is why today, he is considered a precursor of biomorphic architecture.

He used the equilibrium rule of the catenary, creating a spatial model of a building and testing the forces of gravity on it. He tested the strength of different materials, such as basalt and granite and experimented with lighting - for a better effect, he used mirrors or photographs to design. To decorate surfaces, Gaudi used the Catalan style of trencadis mosaic. His most mature works come from this period: Colonia Guell, Casa Mila or Sagrada Familia.

The idea to build a church in this place goes back to 1866 when the founders of the Spiritual Society of St. Joseph started a campaign to build a temple dedicated to the Holy Family. After 15 years, thanks to donations, an amount was raised to purchase a plot of land. The cornerstone was laid on St. Joseph's Day, March 19, 1882. The church project was commissioned to the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar, who, however, could not come to an agreement with the association and resigned after a year. His place was taken by Antonio Gaudi.

Thirty-one-year-old Gaudi presented a completely new design of the building. It assumed building a church without external arches and buttresses, with an enlarged central tower 172.5 meters high. The church was to be devoted to Jesus Christ. As mystical-religious references were of great importance in Gaudi's work, he prepared a complex iconographic program.

Both the architecture and ornamentation of the facades and interior of the Sagrada Familia are saturated with Christian symbolism. This church, through its size and architectural splendor, was to refer to the most significant Gothic cathedrals.

It contains three facades: The Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory, each of which is a different style. It has 18 towers that symbolize the 12 apostles, the four evangelists, Christ and the Virgin Mary.

The dimensions are governed by proportions based on the number 7.5, which is the base dimension. The length of the nave is the most important in this five-nave church (as in other churches). In this case, it is 90 m (7.5 x 12), where 12 symbolizes the apostles. The height of the main nave is 45 m (7.5 x 6). The transept (transverse nave) is 60 m long (7.5 x 8 or 5 x 12) and 30 m wide (7.5 x 4). The apse is 75 m (7.5 x 10) high.

It consists of two planes of symmetry having a single axis. Their number and infinity may symbolize the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

They take their names from the portals adorning them that are closely related to the gospels, and their moodiness alludes to the three main literary types. 

• Nativity façade - (the only one largely completed during Gaudi's lifetime) has a lyrical, joyful character related to the birth of Jesus.
• Passion façade - has the poignancy and bleakness of drama.
• Glory façade - has epic overtones.

He included in the design:

• The plant kingdom - massive upward branching columns resembling a dense stone forest. Thirty-six of the "trees" connect only with the vault; the other sixteen are incorporated into the temple walls. Their total number - 52 - indicates the number of Sundays in the whole year (except Easter Sunday).
• The animal kingdom - animal symbols are widely present in the temple's ornamentation - most of them are on the Nativity façade. These are animals symbolizing good (a lamb, a dove) and also evil (a snake with an apple representing Satan, reptiles, amphibians).
• The mineral kingdom - the undulating surface of the Nativity façade reflects the landscape of the Catalan mountains of Montserrat.
• The kingdom of man - is most clearly reflected in the main portal of the Passion Façade, which is the most naturalistic. Using the angular masses that make up the Passion sculptures, it speaks most powerfully to those who view it. At the bottom are six upward climbing columns that symbolize the primary bones of man (the crucified Christ) along with the structure of the adjacent tendons. They are complemented by 18 other columns - a total of 24, the number of bones a human rib has.

For the next forty years, he worked intensively on the temple's construction, devoting the last fifteen years of his life entirely to it. He even took up residence on the construction site.

After his death, he was buried in the basilica's crypt, following his wishes.

Although he claimed that the temple under construction might not be the last one he built, but probably the first of a new generation, he was probably aware that he would not live to see the completion of the Sagrada Familia - hence the crypt.

During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, some of his designs were destroyed, so the final appearance of the building is not determined. The construction has not been finished until today. It is scheduled to be completed in 2026, the 100th anniversary of the death of the temple's architect.

Gaudi believed that a natural, God-created mountain should tower over the city, not a man-made structure.

A Spaniard, Joan Vila-Grau, made them.

More than 3 million tourists come there every year. Since the construction continues thanks to private donations and tourism, the funds obtained from tourism make a measurable contribution to the temple's building. Construction costs are approximately 25 million euros per year.

Sixty-two thousand people attended a solemn Mass led by the pope.

Maybe not entirely true, as Gaudi had obtained the appropriate permit from the municipal authorities of Sant Marti de Provenals, which is now part of Barcelona. Barcelona authorities in 2019 approved the decision to grant permission to build in the city and, according to an agreement with the diocesan curia, a sum of 36 million euros will flow into the city coffers from the basilica authorities over ten years.

To get to the tower's top, you must climb 400 stairs or use the elevator.