Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Family
The Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family (in Catalan, Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família), known simply as the Sagrada Família , is a Catholic basilica in Barcelona (Spain), designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí. Started in 1882, it is still under construction. It is Gaudí's masterpiece and the greatest exponent of Catalan modernist architecture. It is one of the most visited monuments in Spain, along with the Prado Museum and the Alhambra in Granada, and is the most visited church in Europe after St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. When completed, it will be the highest Christian church of the world.
The Sagrada Família is a reflection of Gaudí's artistic fullness: he worked on it for most of his professional career, but especially in the last years of his career, where he reached the culmination of his naturalistic style, in the which achieved a synthesis of all the solutions and styles tested up to that time. Gaudí achieved perfect harmony in the interrelation between structural and ornamental elements, between plastic and aesthetics, between function and form, between content and container, achieving the integration of all the arts into a structured and logical whole.
Since 1915, Gaudí devoted himself practically exclusively to the Sagrada Família, which represents the synthesis of the architect's entire architectural evolution. After the completion of the crypt and the apse, still in neo-Gothic style, the rest of the temple was conceived in an organic style, which imitates the forms of nature, where ruled geometric shapes abound. The interior should resemble a forest, with a set of inclined tree-like columns, in a helical shape, which create a structure that is both simple and resistant. Gaudí applied to the Sagrada Família all his findings previously experienced in works such as Park Güell or the Colonia Güell crypt and managed to create a temple that was structurally perfect as well as harmonious and aesthetic.
The Sagrada Familia has a Latin cross plan, with five central naves and a transept with three naves, and an apse with seven chapels. It boasts three façades dedicated to the Birth, Passion and Glory of Jesus and, when it is finished, it will have eighteen towers: four on each portal, making a total of twelve for the apostles; four on the transept, invoking the evangelists; one on the apse, dedicated to the Virgin; and the central tower-dome, in honor of Jesus, which will reach 172.5 m in height. The temple will have two sacristies next to the apse and three large chapels: that of the Assumption, in the apse; and those of Baptism and Penance, next to the main façade. Likewise, it will be surrounded by a cloister designed for processions and to isolate the temple from the outside. Gaudí applied a high symbolic content to the Sagrada Família, both in architecture and in sculpture, since he gave each part of the temple a religious significance.
During Gaudí's lifetime, only the crypt, the apse and, partially, the Nativity façade were completed, of which Gaudí only saw the tower of San Bernabé crowned. Upon his death, his assistant, Domingo Sugrañes, took charge of the construction; Subsequently, it has been under the direction of various architects, with Jordi Faulí i Oller being director of the works since 2012. Artists such as Llorenç and Joan Matamala, Carles Mani, Jaume Busquets, Joaquim Ros i Bofarull, Etsuro Sotoo and Josep Maria Subirachs, the latter author of the decoration of the Passion façade.
The work that Gaudí carried out, that is, the Nativity façade and the crypt, was included in 2005 by Unesco in the World Heritage Site "Works of Antoni Gaudí". It is a monument declared in the register of Cultural Assets of National Interest of Catalan heritage and in the register of Assets of Cultural Interest of Spanish heritage with the code RI-51-0003813. It is also, since 2007, one of the 12 Treasures of Spain. Also, in 2007, was chosen one of the Seven Wonders of Catalonia. The temple was declared a minor basilica on November 7, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI. That year, the recently built main nave of the temple received the City of Barcelona Award for Architecture and Urbanism. The Sagrada Familia is also popularly known as the "Cathedral of the poor", because of the homonymous painting by the modernist painter Joaquín Mir.
In the Sagrada Familia everything is providential: its location is in the center of the city and the plain of Barcelona; there is the same distance from the temple to the sea and to the mountains, to Sants and to Sant Andreu, and to the Besòs and Llobregat rivers.Antoni Gaudí
History
The idea of building an expiatory temple dedicated to the Holy Family came from the bookseller Josep Maria Bocabella, inspired by the priest Josep Manyanet —canonized in 2004—, founder of the religious congregations Congregation of Children of the Holy Family and Congregation of Missionaries Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, in charge of promoting the cult of the Holy Family and fostering the Christian education of children and young people. In 1869, Manyanet published The Spirit of the Holy Family, where he launched the idea of a temple in Barcelona dedicated to his cult. To this end, Bocabella founded in 1866 the Spiritual Association of Devotees of San José, with the aim of raising funds. In 1871, Bocabella visited Pope Pius IX in Rome and, during that trip, he visited the sanctuary of Loreto (Ancona), which is supposed to guard what was the house of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, a temple that served as his inspiration for the projected Barcelona church.
In 1881, Bocabella bought a plot of land for the construction of the temple in a place known as El Poblet, near Camp de l'Arpa, in San Martín de Provensals —at that time an independent municipality that would be added to Barcelona in 1897—, between Provenza, Mallorca, Marina and Sardinia streets. This land was included in the Plan Cerdá de Ensanche de Barcelona. The lot, 130 × 120 m, was a little larger than the normal blocks of the Eixample —usually 100 × 100 m—, because in the Cerdá Plan it was reserved for a racetrack, which was not built in the end. It cost 172,000 pesetas at the time.
To disseminate their work, the Association of Devotees published a magazine from 1867, initially called The Propagator of Devotion to Saint Joseph, directed by the Mercedarian priest José María Rodríguez Bori; in 1948 it was renamed Temple and, since 1981, Temple (in Catalan). Since 1895, the management of the project has been the responsibility of the Construction Board of the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia, a canonical foundation created to promote the construction of the temple through donations and private initiatives. Its born president is the Archbishop of Barcelona, currently Juan José Omella. In 2001, the Junta received the Creu de Sant Jordi award from the Generalitat of Catalonia.
Since its inception, the Sagrada Família was paid for with alms and donations, which caused the works to slow down or even stop on several occasions due to a lack of contributions. In 1891, for example, an important donation of just over half a million pesetas —paid in monthly installments between 1891 and 1898—, coming from the last will of the widow Isabel Bolet, allowed the construction of the Nativity façade to begin. In the same way, in 1905, at another time when the works were almost stopped, the poet Joan Maragall wrote an article entitled A grace of charity, to call on public opinion to collaborate with the construction of the temple.
The project was commissioned in the first place to the diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano, who after several successive projects devised a neo-Gothic ensemble and discarded Bocabella's idea of making a replica of the Loreto sanctuary. Villar's project It consisted of a three-nave church, 44 × 97 m, with typical Gothic elements such as honeycomb windows, exterior buttresses and a tall bell tower in the shape of a needle, which would have reached 100 m in height.
The first stone was laid on March 19, 1882 (Saint Joseph's Day), in the presence of the then Bishop of Barcelona, José María Urquinaona. Gaudí attended the ceremony, since he had worked as Villar's assistant on some project; at that time, it could not be imagined that he would become the architect of said work. To commemorate the fact, a pillar was placed in the entrance door of Calle Mallorca with the date, the pontifical coat of arms and a cross. The works did not begin until August 25, 1883 and were awarded to the contractor Macari Planella i Roura.
In 1883, Villar resigned due to disagreements with Bocabella, who was advised by the famous architect Joan Martorell. The project was offered to Martorell himself, but when he refused, it was offered to a thirty-one-year-old Gaudí years. The architect from Reus took charge of the works on November 3, 1883. Gaudí had been Martorell's assistant on several constructions, a fact that led to the recommendation of the recently graduated architect, who had not yet carried out major works. When Gaudí took charge of the project, he completely modified it —except for the already built part of the crypt— and gave it his own peculiar style. However, he could not change the orientation of the building, since the foundations were already made. Gaudí would have preferred to place the axis of the building diagonally to the block, to place the apse facing east and to have a greater length in plan.
During the remaining forty-three years of his life he worked intensely on the work, the last fifteen exclusively. In addition, for the last eight months before his death, he lived in the temple workshop. This intense dedication can be explained, in addition to the magnitude of the work, by the fact that Gaudí defined many aspects as construction progressed, instead of having previously specified them in their plans and instructions. Therefore, his personal presence in the work was of great importance. Almost from the beginning, Gaudí had the help of two of his most faithful collaborators, Francisco Berenguer and Juan Rubió, and later, around 1909, he had the collaboration of Josep Maria Jujol. On Berenguer's death, in 1914, Domingo Sugrañes became his first assistant, until then second assistant; and, in 1918, Francesc Quintana entered as second.
Gaudí estimated that the construction would last centuries. For this reason, he proposed to the Construction Board to build vertically instead of horizontally, for which reason he raised and finished the façade of the apse, first, and of the Nativity, later, in order that the generation that had begun the work would see something finished and Simultaneously, that finished façade could serve as a stimulus to future generations to continue the temple. His proposal was accepted.
It is not possible for a single generation to reach the entire Temple, so let us leave a so vigorous sample of our passage so that the coming generations feel the encouragement to do so; and on the other hand let us not bind them for the rest of the work (...). We have made a complete facade of the Temple so that its importance makes it impossible to stop continuing the work.Antoni Gaudí
The temple grew slowly and Gaudí changed the project as he went along, a project that gradually evolved into construction as the architect's ideas were outlined, which he embodied in models that he made in his workshop. Aware of the magnitude of the work, Gaudí put more effort into its conception than into its realization. The poet Joan Maragall, a friend of the architect, commented in 1900 that "I understand that the man who has put the most of his life into the construction of this temple does not want to see it finished" (article entitled The temple that is born, published in the Diario de Barcelona). For Maragall, the temple was more a symbol than a building, the redemptive project of a city that expresses a collective aspiration for moral development, "the construction that redeems from all destruction." For Maragall, the Sagrada Familia is "architecture poetry", "the temple that does not end, that is in perennial formation, [...] the temple that constantly awaits its altars".
Between 1908 and 1909, Gaudí built the Sagrada Família Schools on the land destined for the Gloria façade, intended to provide education for the children of the workers and children from the temple's neighbors. They were inaugurated on November 15, 1909 by the Bishop of Barcelona, Juan José Laguarda y Fenollera. Its realization entailed a cost of 9,000 pesetas, which Gaudí himself paid.
On December 11, 1921, the first stone of the nave of the temple was laid —specifically the one at the base of the column dedicated to Tarragona—, with a blessing ceremony officiated by the Archbishop of Tarragona and Metropolitan of Catalonia, Francisco Vidal and Barraquer.
In 1923, while Gaudí was still alive, the calculations for the structure of the naves signed by his assistant, Sugrañes, were published in the bulletin of the Association of Architects of Catalonia. Those who have continued construction have been based on these calculations, although it has been necessary to adapt them to comply with current regulations.
Gaudi, aware that the construction of the temple would be carried out by later generations, tried to define the project on plans, but, knowing that he would not have time to live, he made several detailed plaster models on a 1:10 scale and 1:25 of the most significant parts, with the hope that they would be used as models for the rest of the building. Gaudí designed three-dimensional models of the central nave, the sacristy and the Gloria façade. The model of the main nave was to serve as a model for the rest of the naves and the model of the sacristy was to be the model for the central towers.
During Gaudí's lifetime, only the crypt, the apse and the Nativity façade were only partially completed, since only one of the four towers was completed —the architect only saw the tower of San Bernabé crowned. It had the collaboration of several artists: in sculpture, Carles Mani, Llorenç Matamala and Joan Matamala; in drawing, Ricard Opisso, who worked as an office assistant developing plans and making profiles of figures or motifs to scale. Upon his death in 1926, run over by a tram, his assistant, Domingo Sugrañes (during the years 1926-1936), which finished the three remaining towers on the Nativity façade.
On July 20, 1936, two days after the coup d'état that led to the Civil War, FAI anarchists set fire to the crypt, which destroyed most of the workshop where Gaudí had worked, where were his sketches, models and models. A few days after the destruction, the architect Lluís Bonet i Garí requested that the broken fragments of the models be rescued, which were kept. Among these, others that were buried and that were later recovered and the preserved photographs of the original models, from 1940 Lluís Bonet, Isidre Puig i Boada and Francesc Quintana restored and reconstructed the models, drew up their plans and built a new replica of the 1:10 scale model of the main nave, which today can be seen in the museum of the basilica.
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When, in 1944, it was decided to continue the construction of the Sagrada Família, it had to be defined in the first place how to proceed to build the temple in the most faithful way to Gaudí's ideas. The architects Bonet, Quintana and Puig Boada were in charge of this gigantic task, while Jaume Busquets and various other sculptors were in charge of the sculptural work. The works resumed on June 30, 1948, with a small ceremony consisting of the celebration of a mass in the crypt and an act presided over by the members of the Construction Board in the transept window, the first to be addressed in this new phase. The definitive impulse came in 1953, thanks to the publication of a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego, in which he expressed his desire to speed up the works; the following year, the Construction Board decided to build the second façade, that of the Passion, financed thanks to donations, annual collections and the beginning of the entrance of visitors to the works. The towers on the façade were completed in 1976. The main set of sculptural figures for the new façade was commissioned in 1987 from Josep Maria Subirachs. Similarly, the Japanese sculptor Etsuro Sotoo collaborated on some sculptures on the Nativity façade, the fruit baskets on the exterior windows and the restoration of the sculptures on the Rosario door. From 1987 to 2012, the works were under the direction of Jordi Bonet i Armengol, when he was replaced by Jordi Faulí i Oller.In 1987 work began on the naves of the temple; in the year 2000 the central nave was covered and, in 2010, the entire temple was finished.
One of the points that has aroused the greatest controversy around the Sagrada Familia is its location in the urban fabric of Barcelona: when the works began it was in the middle of the countryside, but it was soon integrated into the rapid development produced in the city early XX century. In 1916, Gaudí carried out a project to include the Sagrada Familia within the Romeu-Porcel Plan, the urban project heir to the Jaussely Plan, a new link project that was to connect the Ensanche of the Cerdá Plan with the new added municipalities: he conceived to locate the temple within a garden area in the shape of an octagonal star, which would have provided an optimal view of the temple from all the surrounding areas. Finally, due to the cost of the land, he reduced the project to a four-pointed star, which allowed a wide view from all the vertices. However, Gaudí's plan was finally not carried out: in 1975, the City Council of Barcelona carried out an urban study that planned to fit out an area in the shape of a cross around the Sagrada Familia, with four landscaped squares at each end of the temple; even so, currently there are only two of these squares and the creation of the new ones It would mean the demolition of several buildings, so the ideal solution to frame the Sagrada Família in its surroundings is still being studied. In December 2013, the City Council published a report with various proposals for urbanization around the temple, prepared by the firm Estudi Massip-Bosch Arquitectes, in which eight possible solutions were offered: leave it as it is; make an avenue 60 m wide up to Avenida Diagonal, which would partially affect two blocks of buildings; make the same avenue but narrower; make a narrow-width avenue up to Valencia street, which would only affect a block of houses; make an avenue to Diagonal wider, completely demolishing the two blocks; completely eliminate the first block, creating a square similar to the two adjacent to the Nativity and Passion façades; the four-pointed star sketched by Gaudí; and, finally, a variant of the previous one in a smaller size. The final decision must be made by consensus between the City Council, the Construction Board and the affected residents.
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The Sagrada Família has had several outstanding events: in 1921 the Jubilee Year of Saint Joseph was celebrated with processions, pilgrimages and masses, and Händel's Hallelujah was sung by a thousand singers from choirs that came from throughout Catalonia, directed by Lluís Millet. In 1952, on the occasion of the XXXV International Eucharistic Congress held in Barcelona, the monumental staircase and the artistic illumination of the Nativity façade were inaugurated, mass communions were celebrated, a prayer of the nations was made for world peace and the sacramental play The matrimonial lawsuit of the body and soul, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, was performed.
Numerous personalities have visited the Sagrada Família: Popes John Paul II (1982) and Benedict XVI (2010); the kings of Spain, Alfonso XIII (1904) and Juan Carlos I (2002); the then Japanese prince Akihito (1985); the president of France, François Mitterrand (1992); the president of China, Jiang Zemin (1996); the president of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio (2002), etc.
Between the years 1940 and 1980, a part of the unbuilt lot of the temple was dedicated to the practice of basketball for the youth of the neighborhood. In 1940, the Sagrada Familia Sports Union was founded —later U.D. Gaudí—, which had its first track on Calle de Marina playing Mallorca (1942-1949) and then moved to Calle de Sardeña (1949-1955), Calle de Mallorca (1955-1965) and Calle de Navy (1965-1987). In 1987, the track was closed to locate the new access to the temple museum.
In 1981, the Plaza de Gaudí was opened in front of the Sagrada Familia, with a garden project by Nicolás María Rubió Tudurí, where the pond stands out, in whose waters the temple is reflected. The following year, on the occasion of the centenary After the laying of the first stone, the temple received the visit of Pope John Paul II. Likewise, on March 18, 2007, the 125th anniversary of the laying of the first stone of the temple was commemorated with a party, concerts and dances of sardana (The Holy Thorn) enveloping the temple. The Sagrada Familia is the usual scene of numerous cultural events and religious gatherings.
Chief architect Jordi Faulí announced in October 2015 that construction was 70% complete and had entered its final phase of erecting six bell towers. Visitor entrance fees—from 15 to 20 euros—financed the annual construction budget of 25 million euros.
On August 20, 2017, a solemn mass was celebrated at the Sagrada Familia in memory of those who died in the attack on the Rambla on August 17, with the presence of King Felipe VI and King Letizia, the President of Spain Mariano Rajoy, the President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, the Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau and other authorities.
In 2018, a dispute that had existed for a long time between the temple and the Barcelona City Council was settled: although, when the works on the temple began, the Construction Board requested a building permit from the San Martín de Provensals city council —at that time an independent municipality—, after its annexation to Barcelona in 1897, a new license was not formalized again in the Barcelona City Council. On October 18, 2018, an agreement was announced between both parties regulating the project license and announcing the preparation of an urban plan to improve the environment, as well as a project for the Sagrada Familia metro station to have a direct access to the same temple. In said agreement, the Construction Board agreed to make compensation of 36 million euros for the inconvenience caused by tourism to the neighborhood, which would be used to make improvements in the environment and in transport.
The sculptural work of Josep Maria Subirachs on the Passion façade was declared a Cultural Asset of National Interest on February 11, 2019, according to the cataloging carried out by the Generalitat of Catalonia, which noted that it is an "exceptional episode in the contemporary sculpture that has made its author an essential reference point for Catalan art".
In March 2020, the works on the Sagrada Família were stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Visits to the temple were also halted, which were resumed on July 4 after taking the appropriate measures to avoid contagion. The first visits were offered free of charge to health professionals who fought against the pandemic. On the other hand, on July 26 a mass was offered for the victims of the coronavirus. finish the works in 2026, date of the centenary of the death of Gaudí.
That same year, on September 26, an indefinite strike was called by subcontracted workers of the Sagrada Família, which sought to achieve the conversion of all staff to an indefinite contract, the normalization of the work schedule and pay employees workers affected by the ERTE. The company replaced the strikers with security personnel, and on November 7, a demonstration in support of the strike was broken up by police forces. On December 17, the company fired 231 workers who were on strike or in a situation of ERTE.
In January 2021 the works resumed, with the initial objective of finishing the tower of María that same year.
The Holy Family is not the last of the cathedrals, but the first of a new era.Antoni Gaudí
- Homes of building the temple
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Ecclesiastical history
The first mass was celebrated on March 19, 1885 in the chapel of San José in the crypt. custodian chaplain—, until it was erected as a parish in 1930. Its first parish priest was Marià Bertran, who was followed by: Lluís Puig (1948), Joan Clerch (1955), Joan Pellisa (1975), Lluís Bonet i Armengol (1993) and Josep Maria Turull (2018)
On November 7, 2010, the Sagrada Familia temple was dedicated to religious worship by Pope Benedict XVI, in an act attended by the King and Queen of Spain, Juan Carlos I and Doña Sofía, together with the Archbishop of Barcelona, Lluís Martínez Sistach, and various authorities including the President of the Generalitat, José Montilla, the President of Congress, José Bono, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu. In this ceremony, the Pope declared the Sagrada Família a minor basilica, being the ninth church in the Catalan capital to receive this distinction.
As of July 9, 2017, Sunday masses, which until then were celebrated in the crypt, began to be celebrated in the main nave of the temple, by decision of Archbishop Juan José Omella.
On October 21, 2017, a beatification was celebrated in the temple, that of one hundred and nine Claretian martyrs murdered in 1936. The ceremony was presided over by Cardinals Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona.
In 2018, after the retirement of Lluís Bonet i Armengol, Josep Maria Turull was appointed parish priest of the Basilica of the Sagrada Família, the first to hold the post of the basilica as a whole and not just the crypt as it came happening until then.
The temple
When Gaudí began to direct the construction of the temple, only the crypt had begun, in which he modified the capitals, which went from being Corinthian to another style inspired by plant motifs. Gaudí evolved from the first neo-Gothic project towards his particular naturalistic, organic style, inspired by nature. The architect believed that the Gothic style was imperfect, because its straight forms, its system of pillars and flying buttresses, did not reflect the laws of nature, which according to him is prone to regulated geometric forms, such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the conoid.
Ruled surfaces are shapes generated by a straight line, called a generatrix, when moving over a line or several lines, called guidelines. Gaudí found them in abundance in nature, such as in reeds, reeds or bones; he said that there is no better structure than a tree trunk or a human skeleton. These forms are both functional and aesthetic, and Gaudí used them with great wisdom, adapting the language of nature to the structural forms of architecture. The architect assimilated the helical shape to movement and the hyperboloidal shape to light. He said the following about ruled surfaces: «the paraboloids, hyperboloids and helicoids, constantly varying the incidence of light, have their own richness of nuances, which make ornamentation and even modeling unnecessary».
Gaudí modified his conception of the temple over the years, since the interruptions of the works due to lack of economic resources gave him time to look for new structural solutions. Likewise, he took advantage of his experimentation in other projects to incorporate his most successful innovations into the Sagrada Familia: the Colonia Güell crypt, as well as the galleries and viaducts of Park Güell, helped him to adopt new architectural solutions based on hyperboloids and paraboloids, as well as as in helical columns. Likewise, the towers of the Sagrada Familia were inspired by an unrealized project for some Franciscan Catholic Missions in Tangier (1892), commissioned by the Marquis de Comillas.
Without the large-scale test of the praised, helicoidal forms in the columns and paraboloids in the walls and vaults, which I have done in the Güell Colony, I would not have dared to use them in the temple of the Holy Family.Antoni Gaudí.
For Gaudí, a key element in his way of conceiving the structure was the parabolic or catenary arch, also called the funicular of forces, which he used as the most suitable element to withstand the pressures. By simulating different experimental polyfuniculars, he determined the optimal shape of the structure to withstand the pressures of the arches and vaults, first in the crypt of Colonia Güell and later in the Sagrada Família. He developed a scale model of interwoven cords from which they suspended small sacks of shot that simulated the weights; thus, he determined the funicular of forces and the form of the structure. Therefore, based on the state of charges, simulated with the sachets of shot, he experimentally determined the ideal shape of the structure —which he called "stereostatic"—, which reproduced the optimal structure for working under traction and which, by inverting it, was obtained the ideal structure to work in compression.
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Gaudí conceived the interior of the Sagrada Família as if it were the structure of a forest, with a set of arborescent columns divided into various branches to support a structure of interlocking hyperboloid vaults. He inclined the columns to better receive the pressures perpendicular to his section; In addition, he gave them a double-turn helical shape (right-hand and left-handed), as in the branches and trunks of trees. Due to the set of elements applied to the columns —inclination, helical shape, branching into several smaller columns— he achieved a simple way to support the weight of the vaults without the need for external buttresses.
He designed a basilica-type plan in a Latin cross, with the main altar above the crypt, in a presbytery with an ambulatory surrounded by seven apse chapels; in front of the altar, a transept with three naves, with the portals of the Nativity and the Passion; longitudinally the central body, with five naves, with the portal of Glory. The plan has dimensions of 117 × 82.5 m and the built-up area will have a total area of 4500 m². Its capacity will be 14,000 people.
The set will also include a cloister that will surround the church, planned for carrying out processions and to isolate the temple from the outside; in the center of the section corresponding to the apse will be the chapel of the Assumption. It will also have two sacristies on the sides of the apse façade, as well as the large circular Baptism and Penance chapels on the sides of the Glory façade. The main level of the temple is elevated 4 m above street level, leaving a basement and semi-basement occupied by the museum and workshops.
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The temple will have eighteen towers, four on each of the three façades making a total of twelve for the apostles, in the center the dome tower dedicated to Jesus —from 172.5 m high—, another four dedicated to the evangelists around the dome tower and, on the apse, another dome dedicated to the Virgin. They have a parabolic profile and have helical stairs that leave the central part hollow to place tubular bells arranged as a carillon.
Next to the temple, Gaudí built several annex buildings: the chaplain's house —built in 1887 and renovated between 1906 and 1912—, a simple brick construction, to which were attached various spaces used as Gaudí's office, a models and a photography laboratory; and the Escuelas de la Sagrada Familia (1909), a small building used as a school for the children of the workers who worked on the site.
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Gaudí conceived a complex iconography that he based exclusively on its condition as a Catholic temple and on religious worship, for which he adapted all the architectural elements to the liturgical rites. To do this, he was mainly inspired by The Liturgical Year by Prosper Guéranger, a compilation of all the services and religious festivities produced at the end of the year, as well as the Roman Missal and the Bishops Ceremony. For Gaudí, the Sagrada Família was a hymn of praise to God, in which each stone was a stanza. The exterior of the temple represents the Church, through the apostles, the evangelists, the Virgin and Jesus, whose main tower symbolizes the triumph of the Church; the interior alludes to the universal Church and the transept to the Heavenly Jerusalem, mystical symbol of peace.
Gaudí personally designed many of the sculptures for the Sagrada Família, to which he applied a curious working method devised by him: first, he made a deep anatomical study of the figure, focusing on the joints —for which he studied carefully the structure of the human skeleton—; sometimes he used dolls made of wire to test the proper posture of the figure to be sculpted. Second, he took photographs of the models, using a system of mirrors that provided multiple perspectives. Next, he made plaster casts of the figures, both of people and animals—on one occasion he had to hoist a donkey up to keep it from moving. On these molds he made corrections in the proportions to get a perfect vision of the figure depending on its location in the temple, larger the higher. Finally, it was carved in stone.
The work of the Holy Family is slow, because the Master of this work is not in a hurry.Antoni Gaudí
The Crypt
Started in 1882 according to the project of Francisco del Villar, when Gaudí took charge of the works, on November 3, 1883, he transformed the pillars adding capitals with naturalistic motifs; he also raised the vault and surrounded the crypt with a moat for direct lighting and ventilation. On the other hand, he moved the main altar to the place provided for the main staircase, corresponding to the center of the transept, which he thus left free, placing two spiral staircases on the sides instead. Gaudí's first plans for the Sagrada Familia were of the chapel of San José, built between 1884 and 1885, the date of the celebration of the first mass. Work on the crypt lasted until 1891.
Located 10 m below street level, the crypt is semicircular in shape, 40 m long by 30 m wide. The ambulatory is made up of seven chapels dedicated to the Holy Family of Jesus: Saint Joseph, the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Conception, Saint Joachim, Saint Anne, the chapel of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist and the chapel of Saint Elizabeth and Saint Zacharias. They are arranged in the form of a rotunda, in front of which are other five chapels in a straight line: the central one dedicated to the Sagrada Família —which houses the altar—, flanked by the chapels of Nuestra Señora del Carmen —where Gaudí is buried—, Jesus Christ, Nuestra Señora de Montserrat and Santo Cristo —where Josep Maria Bocabella was buried until his tomb was desecrated in 1936. In the space located under the spiral stairs on the sides There are two sacristies.
The vaults in the crypt are in the Gothic style, each of them —in a total of 22— with a central key decorated with anagrams or images of angels and other motifs; It is worth noting the keystone of the central vault, with a polychrome relief dedicated to the Annunciation, the work of Joan Flotats. This central vault is the highest and stands two meters above the ground on the upper floor, at the height of the presbytery, where some large windows allow the crypt to be seen from above and provide light to the space below. It is supported by lunettes supported by arches on ten pillars in bundles of little columns.
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The altar is presided over by an altarpiece in relief of the Holy Family, initially made for the Casa Batlló oratory and later placed here. The image of the Nazareth family was sculpted by Josep Llimona, while the Santo Cristo and the chandeliers were modeled by Carles Mani; the frame was designed by Gaudí himself. Several of the original sculptures were destroyed in 1936, such as San José, by Maximí Sala; those of Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception, by Josep Llimona; and the Christ who presided over the main altar, by Joan Matamala. Before 1936, only the Santo Cristo by Josep Llimona is preserved. Of the current ones, the image of the Virgen del Carmen is the work of Jaume Busquets; the images of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Joseph and the Sacred Heart are by Josep Maria Camps i Arnau.
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The crypt is surrounded by a Roman mosaic of opus tessellatum where the vine and wheat are represented, symbols of the Eucharist, the work of the Italian mosaicist Mario Maragliano. The stained glass windows were made with a rich colorful, with images of singing and musical angels and lilies. The holy water fonts in the crypt are made with large sea shells (Tridacna gigas) from the Philippines, which were provided to Gaudí by the Marquis de Comillas, owner of the Spanish Transatlantic Company. Some of the lamps in the crypt were made by Gaudí with his own hands, since the doctor had recommended manual labor to combat rheumatism. He also designed the liturgical furniture in the crypt, such as a lectern, a tenebrary, cabinets, confessionals or candlesticks, executed by the carpenter Joan Munné.
The crypt of the Sagrada Familia, together with the construction workshop, suffered significant damage on July 21, 1936 in a fire caused during the burning of churches in Barcelona during the Civil War. This attack destroyed and damaged forever some of the models, plans and documents of Gaudí's original project. In that same act, the tomb of the founder of the temple, Josep Maria Bocabella, was also desecrated, although fortunately Gaudí's remained intact, as his disciples were able to verify when they opened the tomb in 1939.
Between 2007 and 2009, the crypt underwent careful rehabilitation, essentially to place new foundations, since the previous ones came from Villar's project and perhaps would not have been sufficient for the modifications carried out by Gaudí, which doubled the height of the building; but, incidentally, the mosaic paving was rehabilitated, as well as the stained glass windows installed in the crypt. On April 19, 2011, a new fire broke out in the crypt, caused by a regular assistant to the parish, which destroyed practically the entire sacristy. Although the damage was extensive, none of the elements of historical value were affected, such as Gaudí's original stained glass windows. The more than 1,500 tourists who were visiting the temple at that time were evicted by the authorities, although it was restored normal a little later. The police arrested the person who caused the fire in a few minutes.
Chapel of Our Lady of Carmen, with the tomb of Gaudí
Chapel of the Holy Christ
Chapel of Saint Joseph
Chapel of the Sacred Heart
Chapel of Our Lady of Montserrat
Immaculate Conception Chapel
Sagrada Familia, by Josep Llimona
AnnouncementJoan Fleets.
The apse
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The apse occupies the head of the temple, between the Nativity and Passion façades. In the center of the cloister that surrounds it will be the chapel of the Assumption and it will have two sacristies on the sides, one of which has been built at the moment. Gaudí dedicated the entire apse to the Virgin Mary, of whom he was a great devotee. The project contains seven apse chapels dedicated to the seven pains and joys of Saint Joseph, according to the wishes of the founder Bocabella. These chapels are separated on the outside by eight buttresses with needles, which reach the 50 m high. Each chapel contains three stained glass windows in its upper part, delimited by two other buttresses with lower spires. Of Gothic inspiration, when it is located on the crypt it follows its same structure. Its construction was carried out from 1890 to 1893, although the vaults of the chapels and the ambulatory were not completed until the beginning of the XXI century..
The apse contains a profuse sculptural decoration where the statues dedicated to holy founders of religious orders stand out: in the buttresses are located (from Birth to Passion) Santa Clara, San Bruno, San Bernardo de Claraval, San Benito de Nursia, Santa Scholastic and San Antonio Abad; Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Teresa of Jesus (Birth and Passion respectively) can be found in the window of the transept façade. There are also the anagrams of Jesus (the initial of his name surrounded by a crown of thorns), of the Virgin (her initial with the crown of Queen of Heaven and Earth) and Saint Joseph (her initial accompanied by daffodils, flowers that evoke purity and chastity). The pinnacles of the buttresses are topped with sculptures of wheat ears and flower buds from the surrounding area —when it was built it was a field—, arranged as a bouquet of flowers as an offering to the Virgin. In addition, in the upper part of the buttresses there are some gargoyles in the shape of animals (snake, chameleon, snail, lizard, lizard, frog and salamander), the work of Llorenç Matamala. In the interior part of the apse there are fifty-six sculptures of angel brackets, distributed among the seven chapels, the work of Jaume Cases.
The high railings of the apse chapels bear floral decoration of the antiphon of the Small Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary: cedar, palm, cypress, cinnamon, rose, olive and balsam. Likewise, the terminals of the pediments of the apse are topped with a sculptural decoration that symbolizes the fruits of the Virgin Mary: rose hips, cinnamon, dates, olives and grapes. The lanterns of the chapels have the symbols of the antiphons of the last week of Advent, known as "antiphons of the O":
- Or Sapientia: wisdom, with a lion and a lamb as a union of strength and meekness;
- O Adonai: Hebraic invocation of God (ducal colon and sceptre);
- O Radix Jesse: rod of Jeseh;
- Or Clavis David.: key as a sign of domain;
- O Oriens: sun as a symbol of righteousness;
- O Rex Gentium: angular stone (stone with the anagram of Jesus and royal crown);
- O Emmanuel rex: King and legislator (actual hand, sword and tables of the Law).
The chapel of the Assumption, for which Gaudí left an elaborate project, will have the shape of a stone litter, which evokes the litter with which the so-called Virgin of August was carried in procession from the cathedral of Girona. The architect was inspired by the work of Lluís Bonifaç from the Girona seo, from which he reproduced in the chapel details such as the curtains, the crown, the pillars and the angels. The chapel will be topped by a 30m high. The dome will be like a cloak raised at the ends by angels, who will be located on the pinnacles of the pediments. The main pediment will bear the inscription Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae, in honor of the Virgin of Mercy, patron saint of Reus, the architect's hometown. Inside, the Holy Trinity will appear in the dome crowning Mary, surrounded by angels —as an invocation of Our Lady of the Angels—; in the gallery there will be twelve angels —by the twelve stars of the crown of the Virgin— with the fruits of the Holy Spirit; Under the gallery will be the death of the Virgin, that of Saint Joseph, the presentation of Mary in the temple by Saint Joaquin and Saint Anne, and the wedding at Cana. In the portals will be the saints of Barcelona dedications: San Roque and San José Oriol. The works of this chapel began in 2022.
The sacristies will have a height of 35 m, on a base of 18 × 18. At the moment, the one on the west, built between 2011 and 2016, has been built. It has a square-shaped ground floor, whose outer sides coincide with the cloister that surrounds the temple. On the first floor, the angles are chamfered, so it has an octagonal plan. Finally, the dome is a polygon of twelve paraboloids. The outer corner contains three of the obelisks that will delimit the four corners of the temple, on which an elliptical hyperboloid-shaped lantern is located. The walls have triangular openings limited by the generatrices and guidelines of the paraboloids. On the pediments and the lantern are inscribed the invocations of the Apocalypse (Ap 7, 9-12), in Catalan: Lloança («praise»), Glòria, Saviesa («wisdom»), Acció de gràcies («thanksgiving»), Honor , Power and Força ("strength"). The dome is topped with a pinnacle of three ridged shields, decorated with enameled ceramic figures of the Lamb and the Grape Harvester —symbols of Jesus Christ—, the work of Francesc Fajula, as well as the inscription Amen, in red porphyry, and the monogram JHS, in golden Venetian glass, all crowned by a bronze ring, which represents the alliance with the Church, and the crown of life, which the martyrs receive in the resurrection (Ap 2, 10).
The apse in 1893
Boceto de la chapel de la Asunción, de Gaudí
Vitrals of the apside
Lizard Sculpture
St. Bruno Sculpture
Priestly Sacristy
Figures of the Lamb and the Vendimiador, sacristy
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Nativity Façade
Being dedicated to the joyous event of the birth of Jesus, this façade presents an exultant decoration where all the elements are evocative of life. It focuses on the most human and familiar facet of Jesus, with a wide profusion of popular elements, such as tools and domestic animals. Oriented to the east (northeast), it receives the dawn sun, which reinforces the idea of life and joy linked to birth, in contrast to the Passion façade, which represents the death of Christ and therefore receives the light of sunset; Gaudí meticulously studied the symbolism of all the spaces in the temple. The façade is divided into three archivolts, which present three porticos dedicated to the theological virtues: Hope on the left, Faith on the right and Charity on the left. center. It culminates with the bell towers dedicated to San Matías, San Judas Tadeo, San Simón and San Bernabé. It was built between 1893 and 1936.
The original sculpture is by Llorenç Matamala and Joan Matamala, with the help of Carles Mani, author of wax molds of various figures on the façade, and with later contributions by Jaume Busquets, Joaquim Ros i Bofarull and Etsuro Sotoo, the last one who worked on the façade, which ended in 2016.
Everyone finds their things in the temple: the peasants see hens and roosters; the scientists, the signs of the Zodiac; theologians, the genealogy of Jesus; but the explanation, the raciocinio, only the competent know it and should not be vulgarized.Antoni Gaudí
The three archivolts have the rampantes supported on two columns on the inside and in the cloisters on the outside. These columns are made up of six helically fluted drums: that of José between the portico of Hope and that of Charity; and that of Mary, between the Portico de la Caridad and the Portico de la Fe. At the base of the columns there is a representation of a turtle —one of the land and one of the sea— as a symbol of what is unalterable over time, while the capitals are in the form of palm fronds, from which clusters of snow-covered dates emerge —due to winter, the date of the birth of Jesus—, supporting two angels with trumpets announcing the birth of Christ. In contrast to the turtles, chameleons were placed on both sides of the façade, symbols of change. Made of sandstone from Montjuïc, in Gaudí's original project this façade was to be polychrome, with paint in various colors on the archivolts of the three porticoes; thus, all the statues would have been painted, both those of human figures and those of flora and fauna and other objects. However, to date this decoration has not been carried out.
The three porticos have four doors —the central one is double— designed by Etsuro Sotoo, made of polychrome bronze and glass, decorated with vegetation, insects and small animals, as an evocation of the place where Jesus was born: the door of Charity is decorated with ivy —symbol of obedience— and pumpkin flowers —symbol of marriage—; that of Faith contains wild roses without thorns, following the example of Saint Francis of Assisi, who removed the thorns from roses; and, that of Hope, presents some reeds, like those of the river that the Holy Family crossed on their flight to Egypt. Among the insects and small animals that appear on the doors, you can see butterflies, ants, flies, grasshoppers, spiders, dragonflies, beetles, crickets, bedbugs, wasps, centipedes, bees, ladybugs, caterpillars, etc. The first of these doors, those of the Portal de la Caridad, were placed between July and December 2014; the one on the Esperanza portico was installed in July 2015; and that of the Portal de la Fe was placed on November 30, 2015. On the door of La Caridad you can also see the inscriptions in Latin Deus Caritas Est and Caritas Numquam Excidit, while the roses on the two doors draw the initials J and M (José and María).
This façade was chosen by Gaudí to give a global idea of the structure and decoration of the temple: as he was aware that he could not finish the project in the course of his life, instead of building the temple as a whole in a linear way he preferred to build a complete façade in all its verticality, to give a complete sample of how the rest should be. He chose this façade because it was, in his opinion, the one that could be most attractive to the public, thus encouraging the continuation of the work after his death; in his own words:
If instead of making this facade decorated, ornamented, turgent, it would have begun by the Passion, hard, peeled, as made of bones, people would have withdrawn.
Charity Portal
It is the oldest of the three and is dedicated to Jesus. It is made up of skewed walls that go from the doors to the columns located between the archivolts, which originate from their capitals; This central archivolt is structured around a five-lobed arch that serves as a guideline and ends in the window of the central tympanum. The walls are grooved, with six edges that emerge from an earthen bench and are interrupted by pedestals decorated with sculptural motifs of plants and domestic birds, on top of which are niches with sculptures of adorations and the Nativity crowning the mullion. The portico develops a series of scenes about the birth of Jesus: the Annunciation and the Coronation of Mary, together with the Adoration of the Kings and the Adoration of the Shepherds —the latter works by Ros i Bofarull (1981-1982)—; we also find the star of Bethlehem and the signs of the Zodiac, arranged as they were the night Jesus was born (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo), as well as musical angels -with classical instruments (harp, bassoon and violin) and popular (guitar, tambourine and bagpipes)—and the fifty-nine rosary beads surrounding the window. On the door lintel there is the inscription «Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis». There are also numerous representations of plant species.
The door of Jesus is divided by a mullion with the tree of Jesse, which presents the genealogy of Christ. At its base is the snake biting the apple, symbol of original sin; The lower part of this column is protected with a cylindrical iron grill, the work of the blacksmith Joan Oñós. On the capital is the Nativity group, the work of Jaume Busquets (1958), with a Choir of Child Angels —performed by Etsuro Sotoo in the year 2000—, which support phylacteries with the inscription «Jesus est natus. Come, adoremus”, at whose message the birds go to the foot of the cradle, according to the popular Catalan Christmas carol El cant dels ocells (The song of the birds).
The portal culminates in the Tree of Life, which represents the triumph of life and the legacy of Jesus. Here we find the anagram of Jesus with the letters JHS (from Jesuchristus or Jesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Savior of Humanity), on a Greek cross, with the Greek letters alpha and omega as symbols of the beginning and the end. He is surrounded by censer angels and angels carrying bread and wine, symbols of the Eucharist. On the anagram we find a family of pelicans, a bird that represents a primitive Christian symbol that also alludes to the Eucharist, with an egg symbol of the origin and fullness of life and nature. In an ascending direction there are two stairs —as an ascension to God— and a cypress tree that symbolizes eternal life, with a group of doves that represent the faithful who come to God. Finally, we find a representation of the Holy Trinity, with the Greek letter tau, initial of the name of God in Greek (Theos), the X of Jesus (for the Greek letter ji, initial of Christ in Greek) and the dove of the Spirit Holy.
Gateway of Hope
Dedicated to Saint Joseph, it has a shape similar to the central portico, with skewed walls with two channels that follow the five-lobed shape of the archivolt. Here we find the scenes of the Engagement of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, the Family of Jesus (with Saint Joachim and Saint Anne), The Wise Man and the Child Jesus, the Death of the Holy Innocents, The Flight into Egypt and The Boat of Saint Joseph, in which Joseph is the helmsman who leads the Catholic Church. We can also observe the placement of various tools: a saw, a mallet, a chisel, a square, a screwdriver, a hammer and an axe. In allusion to the flight to Egypt —and symbolizing the hope of life— there are domestic animals such as geese, geese or ducks representing the fauna of the Nile, as well as Egyptian flora. The portico is topped by a similar large pinnacle to the rocks of Montserrat —specifically the Cavall Bernat—, with the Latin inscription Save us.
Faith Portal
Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it has a structure similar to the portico on the left. In this portico we perceive the following scenes: the Immaculate Conception, in which the Virgin appears on a three-armed lamp, in reference to the Holy Trinity; the Visitation, the Virgin visits her cousin Elizabeth; The presentation of Jesus in the temple , where the Child Jesus appears in the arms of the priest Simeon and, next to him, appears the prophetess Anna, who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah; Jesus working as a carpenter; and Jesus preaching in the temple, between the figures of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Zacharias. We also find the Heart of Jesus, covered with thorns and mystical bees that suck his blood; Divine Providence, in the form of a hand with an all-seeing eye; grapes and ears as a symbol of the Eucharist; flora and fauna of Palestine; and palm leaves —symbol of martyrdom— on the columns.
Portal de la Caridad
Portal de la Esperanza
Portal de la Fe
Tree of Life
Death of the Innocent Saints
Away to Egypt
Adoration of the Kings
Adoration of the shepherds
Coronation of Mary
Passion Facade
Construction of the Passion façade began in 1956 —after the excavation work carried out in 1954— according to the drawings and explanations left by Gaudí. The towers were completed in 1976 and, since then, work has been done on the sculptural decoration, which was completed in 2018 with the installation of the triumphal cross and the group of the Empty Sepulcher. Gaudí designed this façade during a convalescence due to a Maltese fever in Puigcerdà, in 1911, although the final sketch was drawn in 1917. Dedicated to the Passion of Jesus, it aims to reflect the suffering of Christ in his crucifixion, as redemption for the sins of man. For this reason, he conceived a more austere and simplified façade, without ornamentation, where the nakedness of the stone stands out, resembling a skeleton reduced to the simple lines of its bones. Only the sculptural groups of the passion cycle of Jesus, the work of Josep Maria Subirachs, who devised a simple and schematic set, with angular shapes that cause a greater dramatic effect. Subirachs made his work between 1987 and 2009.
Gaudi himself described his conception of the Passion façade as follows:
Someone will find this door too extravagant; but I would want it to be afraid, and to get it, I will not save the clearing, the incoming and outgoing motives, all that results from more teasing effect. Moreover, I am willing to sacrifice the same construction, to break arches and to cut columns to give an idea of the crucified Sacrifice.
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Oriented to the west (southwest), the façade is supported by six large inclined columns, resembling redwood trunks, on which is placed a large pediment or upper pyramidal porch made up of eighteen bone-shaped columns and topped by a large cross. The towers are dedicated to the apostles Saint James the Less, Saint Thomas, Saint Philip and Saint Bartholomew.
The Passion façade has three portals equally dedicated to Faith, Hope and Charity, where the bronze doors created by Subirachs stand out. The central portal —of Charity— has two doors dedicated to the Gospel, with the Gospel texts that narrate the last days of Jesus, separated by a mullion with the Greek letters alpha and omega, as a symbol of the beginning and the end. The doors measure 5.28m high by 2.82m wide, and They weigh 6500 kilos. The one on the left presents the passages related to the Passion of the Gospel of Matthew and the one on the right, that of John. Altogether, they have a total of about 10,000 letters, some of which are highlighted with gilt bronze, such as the phrase "What is the truth?" the truth" (John 18, 38).
In front of the doors of the Gospel stands the column of The Flagellation, which replaces the cross initially planned by Gaudí; for this reason, Subirachs divided the column into four blocks, which symbolize the four parts of the cross. It is five meters high and is made of travertine marble. Other outstanding details of the column are: the knot, which symbolizes the torture suffered by Jesus; the fossil, found in the marble block according to Subirachs, and which has the shape of a palm tree, a symbol of martyrdom; and the cane that the soldiers gave Jesus instead of the royal scepter, as a symbol of the derision suffered by the Redeemer. The three steps symbolize the three days that elapsed until the resurrection. This was the first sculpture to be installed on the Passion façade and is signed Subirachs 30 nbre 1987.
The portal of Faith presents the Gate of Gethsemane, 4.41 m high by 2.40 m wide, dedicated to the prayer of Jesus in the garden of olive trees. We see images of Jesus praying, while his disciples sleep; in the upper left part the night sky appears with the full moon, as an omen of death. In the lower part there is a polyhedron from the engraving La Melancholia , by Albrecht Dürer, and the inscription «Jesus fell on his face, praying: my father, if it is possible, take this away from me. chalice; but let it be done not as I want, but as you want» (Matthew 26, 39).
The Gate of Hope features the Gate of the Crowning with Thorns, 5 m high and 2.40 m wide. Here Jesus appears mocked with the crown of thorns, the mantle and the cane, as a mockery of his status as king, next to the inscription «And the soldiers woven a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him with a purple cloak; and they said to him: “Hail, King of the Jews”; and they slapped him" (John 19:2). In another scene, Jesus is led before Herod and Pilate, who appear facing each other symmetrically, as if seen in a mirror. It also includes a quote from Dante's The Divine Comedy and a poem from La pell de brau (The Bull's Skin) by Salvador Espriu.
The sculptural cycle of the Passion is installed on three levels, following an ascending order in the shape of an S, to reproduce the Calvary of Jesus:
- Lower level: contains the scenes of the last night of Jesus before the crucifixion. Starting on the left, Last Supper He presents Jesus with the twelve apostles, at the time Judas will betray him, with the inscription "What you are going to do, do it quickly" (John 13:27). Jesus is behind the viewer, contrary to the traditional representations of this scene. Judas stretches his arm to hide the thirty coins of his betrayal, while at his feet a sleeping dog represents fidelity. Peter and soldiers is the time when Peter cuts the ear to Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, who appears on an olive branch. Join this scene The kiss of Judaswhere the figures are coarsely carved to suggest a night vision; behind Judas, the snake symbolizes the demon. Next to this scene is a magical square of sixteen figures that, adding four of them in any sense, always give thirty-three, the age of Christ when they die; three hundred different combinations can be made. On the other hand, by adding the two only numbers that are repeated (10 and 14) give 48, the same number as the word INRI when adding the equivalence of its letters in numbers according to the Latin alphabet (A=1, B=2, etc). On the right side appears first The denial of Peter, which contains three figures of woman who represent the three times Peter denied Jesus, together with a rooster who announces the sunrise; the apostle is wrapped in a sheet as a symbol of his cowardice. Alongside this scene, there is a labyrinth, as a symbol of the inescrutability of divine designs, while depicting the way of Jesus to Calvary. In Ecce HomoJesus is presented with the crown of thorns, guarded by two soldiers and with the figure of a dubious Pilate to what he should do; at the foot of the Nazarene the stone is broken, representing the earthquake that will occur. Next to this scene there is a column with the Roman eagle and the inscription "Tiberius Imperator". The last scene of this level is The Judgment of Jesusin which Pilate washes his hands assisted by three maids, together with a soldier and the figure of Prócula, the wife of Pilate, who walks away from the scene after failing in his attempt to intercede for the reindeer, whom he had seen in dreams (Matthew 27:19).
- Average level: represents the Calvary of Jesus. It appears in the first place The Three Marys and Simon of Cyrenein which the Cyrine helps with the cross Jesus, surrounded by the Virgin, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleopas. Next, The Veronica shows the face of Jesus marked negatively on the fabric of the woman who cleaned the sweat; the figure of Veronica has no face to not interfere with the image of Jesus. It's the most numerous scene, with seventeen figures. The figure of Veronica is of travertine, while the rest of the figures are of sandstone. Here, Subirachs pays tribute to Gaudí, giving his physiognomy to the figure of the evangelist located on the left, as well as in the shape of the helmets of the soldiers, which evoke the chimneys of the Milà house. Close the cycle Private Longino, the centurion who nailed his spear to Jesus though later became Christianity. Figure on a horse, with helmet and a spear in the hand.
- Upper level: the death and burial of Jesus appears. Start level with Soldiers playing dice the garments of Jesus, three figures of legionaries around a table in the form of astrágalo, the bone of lamb from where the game of dice arose. In the central part, The crucifixion It is the main scene of the porch, with Jesus hanging on the cross—which is four-armed, like the typically gaudinianas, but placed horizontally—which is made of iron, with an I painted in red on the central beam, symbol of INRI; the three Marys and St John appear again, and also appear on the scene a skull—symbol of death and Golgota—a rock and night. The scene is asymmetric, since it places all the figures to the left, while the right is empty, to accentuate the drama of the scene. With 5 m height, the figure of Jesus is the greatest of the whole. About this scene is The veil torna bronze structure that represents the veil of the temple of Jerusalem, which was torn to the death of Jesus. Finally, to the right, it is located The burialwhere Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus appear, depositing the body of Jesus in the tomb, together with the Virgin Mary and an egg, symbol of the resurrection. Nicodemo's effigy is a self-portrait of the Subirachs sculptor.
On both sides of the façade, at the height of the middle level, there are two tribunes described by Gaudí as "councils", since they must have housed the "secret" scenes of the Passion of Christ. They are two cantilevered bodies of prismatic shape, supported by pyramidal bodies and closed with latticework, which house inside some chambers accessible from the first floor of the interior. These rooms were to be decorated with the aforementioned secret scenes: the meeting of the priests, scribes and Pharisees who plotted the death of Jesus; and the scene in which Judas throws at the feet of these priests the thirty-three coins that they paid him for his betrayal. At the moment, these scenes have not been executed.
In the upper arch of the atrium there are two mosaics made before the intervention of Subirachs, the work of Jordi Vila i Rufas. In the central portal, over the Crucifixion, there is a mosaic that was later covered by The Torn Veil. It has a central panel with a lamb and the Greek letters alpha and omega, and four other panels with phrases from the Good Friday liturgy, two in Latin and two in Catalan: «Nulla silva talem profert fronde, flore, germine», «Flecte ramos, arbor alta», «Quan per menjar el fruit d'Efes» and «A la plenitude del temps profetitzat». The second is in the portal of Faith, next to the group of Soldiers playing dice in the garments of Jesus: it is a small mosaic with the legend Dulce lignum, part from a stanza from the hymn Crux fidelis by Venancio Fortunato: "Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, Dulce pondus sustinet" ("Oh sweet log, sweet nails those who supported such a sweet weight!").
Above this portal there is a pediment made up of a set of eighteen columns, on which is a cornice of hexagonal prisms, with a chrismon in its central part with the inscription Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum. The colonnade and the cimacio with the chrismon were finished in 2016. In the intercolumnium of the pediment a program related to the prophets and the biblical patriarchs is developed, which continues with the same symbology of faith, hope and charity: the patriarchs represent faith; the prophets, hope; and the central part, dedicated to the Resurrection, symbolizes charity. The walls with the names of the patriarchs and prophets, a work designed by Subirachs and sculpted by his assistant Bruno Gallart, were finished in 2005. In principle, the prophets and patriarchs were to be images, but the sculptor preferred to make a mural with the names so as not to overload the Passion façade and obstruct the vision of the Passion cycle of Jesus shown at the bottom. Thus, these biblical figures have been represented by Subirachs with their names —and some with their corresponding symbols— in the form of an arabesque, engraved in a 36 m relief. long and 5.5m high.
- Patriarchs: Adam and Eve (with the serpent and the tree with the apple of original sin), Abel, Henoc, Noah (with an undulating line representing the flood), Matusalén (with the figure 969, the years he lived according to the Bible), Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob (with the staircase of Jacob), Lyah, Rachel, Judah, David, Hezekiah, Josiah.
- Prophets: Moses (with the tablets of the law), Séfora, Aaron, Balaam, Débora, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah (with a tongue of fire), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jonah (with the inscription of the city of Nineveh and its sumeroadic pictogram, a fish within a house) and Zechariah (with some wings of angels); in the end appear the names of Jerusalem.
On the two side acroteria of the pediment there are two animal figures: Abraham's sacrificial lamb and the lion of Judah, victor over death, both prefiguring Jesus. These figures, the work of Lau Feliu, were placed on December 14, 2017.
In the central part of the intercolumnium is the sculptural group of the Empty Sepulcher, the work of Francesc Fajula, placed in April 2018. It represents the tomb where Jesus was buried and from which he rose: next to the entrance is the round stone that covered it, on which sits the angel who announces the resurrection to the Three Marys, who are located on the left side. This group is in relation to the window that represents the Resurrection de Jesús, located on a wall of the side nave, the work of Joan Vila-Grau, resolved in the form of a large window made up of fifteen stained glass windows. The angel who announces the resurrection points with his right arm towards this window.
In the central acroterium there is a large cross to finish off the pediment, 7.5 m high and 4.25 m wide, made of 18-ton stressed stone. It is made with a double twist, with a square base and finials and the central part octagonal in shape, while the tips are pyramidal in shape. It is a triumphal cross, so it does not have the image of Christ represented. At the foot of the cross are three angels, the work of Lau Feliu, one in an attitude of veneration, another caressing the cross and another holding a chalice with the blood of Christ. The cross is made of granite, while the angels are made of travertine. It was placed on July 2, 2018.
In the inner part of the pediment, in the space located between it and the bell towers, the quarry located next to Calvary has been reproduced, where the tomb of Jesus was dug and which later became an orchard (John 19, 41-42). The quarry is represented by large blocks of coarse stone and the orchard by various plant species located at the foot of these blocks (strawberry, violet, snowdrop, myrtle and fern). The L'Obrador landscape team has intervened in its design.
Above the pediment is the Holy Spirit, a sculpture by Subirachs inspired by a dove, but with almost abstract shapes, installed in 2001. It is made of travertine, with dimensions of 2.54 × 3.06 m. Finally, there is the Ascension of Jesus, on the bridge that joins the towers of San Bartolomé and Saint Thomas, at 60 m height of the façade, also the work of Subirachs. It is made of bronze and is 6 m high. Installed in 2005, it depicts Jesus dressed in a robe with open hands.
The figures of the apostles on the towers are also the work of Subirachs, made of 3.25m high travertine stone. They were placed between February and October 2000. Saint James the Less is represented with a bishop's crozier, since he was traditionally the first bishop of Jerusalem; Saint Bartholomew appears with a knife, a symbol of his martyrdom —he was flayed, which is why his figure reveals his anatomy—, as well as a parchment, since he was the author of an apocryphal gospel; Saint Thomas is shown in a doubtful attitude, since he had to touch Jesus to believe in his resurrection; and Saint Philip holds a book in his hands, a symbol of the preaching that he carried out in Asia Minor.
In 1916, Gaudí planned to place a monument to the Bishop of Vic Josep Torras i Bages, his recently deceased friend, in front of the Passion Facade. The architect made a sketch of the project and a plaster bust of the bishop was made, the work of Joan Matamala. However, the project was not finally carried out and the bust was destroyed in 1936. In 2014, during the First World Congress on Gaudí held at the University of Barcelona, the architect Jordi Bonet i Armengol announced the future realization of this project, originally scheduled for completion of the façade works in 2016, although for now the project has been delayed. The monument, 20 m high and made of stone (the base) and bronze (the shaft), will consist of a sculpture of the bishop writing and will have three legs dedicated to the theological virtues (faith, hope and charity), like the façade.
Last dinner
The kiss of Judas
Ecce Homo
The Veronica
The Judgment of Jesus
Column of Flagellation
Private Longino
The crucifixion
Facade of Glory
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The Glory façade will be the largest and most monumental. It is the main façade, which gives access to the central nave. The works began in 2002. Dedicated to the heavenly Glory of Jesus, it represents the ascension path to God: Death, the Last Judgment and Glory, as well as Hell, for all those who deviate from God's dictates. Gaudí sketched just the general lines of this façade, since he was aware that he would not do it while he was alive, but those who would continue his work:
The model fragment of the bell towers of the main facade will not complete or develop it. I have decided to leave it only programmed for another generation to collaborate in the temple, as repeatedly seen in the history of the cathedrals, whose facades are not only of other authors, but also of other styles.
To access the Portico de la Gloria there will be a large staircase with a terrace where the Monument to Fire and Water will be located, the first one represented with a large roof with fire —representing the column of fire that guided the chosen people — and the second with a water spout, with a 20 m high jet that will divide into four cascades, as a symbol of the earthly paradise rivers and the fountains of living water of the Apocalypse.
The stairway will create an underground passage in Calle Mallorca, which would represent Hell and vice, and would be decorated with demons, idols, false gods, schisms, heresies and other representations of evil. Purgatory will also appear, as well as death, represented in sepulchers located on the floor of the porch. Representing the condemnation to work suffered by man after original sin, representations of various trades will appear in a portico on the main façade: tailor, shoemaker, bricklayer, baker, blacksmith, potter, carpenter, etc. Through work and cultivating virtue, man can reach Glory, through redemption and through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the portico will have seven large columns dedicated to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; the seven deadly sins will appear on their bases and, on the capitals, the seven virtues:
- Gifts: Pity, Fortress, Intelligence, Wisdom, Council, Science, The Fear of God.
- Sins: Avaricia, Pereza, Ira, Envidia, Gula, Soberbia, Lujuria.
- Virtues: Generosity, Diligence, Patience, Charity, Templanza, Humility, Castity.
In addition, there are seven doors dedicated to the sacraments and the requests of the Our Father:
- Baptism: "Our Father, who art in heaven, is sanctified be Thy Name."
- Extremation: "Come to us your Kingdom."
- Priestly Order: "Your will be done on Earth as well as in Heaven."
- Eucharist: «Give us today our daily bread».
- Confirmation: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
- Marriage: "Don't let us fall into temptation."
- Penance: "And deliver us from evil."
The first and last, of Baptism and Penance, will coincide with the two side chapels of the Glory façade, which will intersect with the cloister. The Beatitudes and the corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy will also appear on the façade. Likewise, Adam and Eve will be represented, as the origin of the human being; Saint Joseph in his work as a carpenter; Faith, Hope and Charity, represented by the Ark of the Covenant, Noah's Ark and the House of Nazareth; the Virgin Mary, surrounded by angels, saints, prophets, patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, priests, confessors, virgins, and widows; and Jesus at the Last Judgment, with the Holy Spirit in the form of a rose window and God the Father, forming the august Trinity.
The façade will be completed with large illuminated clouds that will contain in large letters the Nicene Creed (Credo in unum Deum Patrem Omnipotentem, creatorem coeli et terrae), located on sixteen large hyperboloid lanterns and ending in a cone, arranged in ascending order: the lower seven will represent the days of creation and the upper nine, the angelic hierarchies. The towers will be the tallest of the three façades and will be dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Andrew and Saint James the Greater.
On April 22, 2007, a sculpture of Saint George was installed on the railing of the jubé —on the inside of the Glory façade—, coinciding with the proclamation of the 550th anniversary of the saint as patron saint of Catalonia and within the framework of the events to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the laying of the first stone of the temple. The work of Subirachs, the statue is made of bronze, three meters high, and is inspired by the Saint George by Donatello.
Likewise, between 2008 and 2012, the doors of the Gloria façade were installed, made in bronze by Subirachs with the help of sculptor Bruno Gallart, with the inscriptions of the Our Father. The main one, made up of two bronze sheets of two tons each, presents the complete prayer, in Catalan, as well as its second paragraph ("Give us today our daily bread") in fifty different languages. It should be noted that the letters A and G of the word caiguem —corresponding to the door handles— are highlighted in gold, as they are the initials of Antoni Gaudí, as a tribute to the architect. The rest of the doors present each join your corresponding prayer request. Each door has a symbol that represents its respective sacrament: baptism, a jug of water and a baptismal font; extreme unction, a laying on of hands; the priestly order, an imposition of the hands of the bishop; the Eucharist, the chalice and the host —in this case located on the glass above the door—; confirmation, by the coming of the Holy Spirit; marriage, some rings; and, penance, a cross.
The towers
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Gaudí designed a highly vertical temple, so that it would be visible from any point in Barcelona and stand out from the rest of the buildings. To do this, he endowed the Sagrada Familia with eighteen towers: twelve for the apostles, four for the evangelists and the domes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. They have different heights, in an ascending direction: the towers of the Nativity, 98.40 m the outer ones and 107 m the central ones; those of the Passion, 107.40 m the outer ones and 112.20 m the central ones; those of Gloria, 112.20 m the outer ones and 120 m the central ones; those of the evangelists, 135 m; that of the Virgin, 138 m; and that of Jesus, 172.50 m.
The Nativity towers have a square base that becomes circular at mid-height, where he placed a balcony and a base with the figure of the apostle as a transition element. They are supported on twelve sandstone ribs, which form long vertical openings between which there are inclined pieces of stone, which serve both to prevent the entry of water and to distribute the sound of the bells. On the other hand, those of the Passion are elliptical in section. For their part, the towers of the evangelists will be made up of eight segments of intersecting paraboloids; that of Mary, fourteen segments; and, that of Jesus, twelve. Gaudí said that "the shape of the towers, vertical and parabolic, is the union of gravity with light".
The tops of the towers have different solutions depending on their typology: those of the apostles are topped by polychrome Venetian mosaic pinnacles with shields with the cross and some white spheres, which symbolize the episcopal miter; There are also the episcopal ring and staff, as well as the initial letter of each apostle. Likewise, there are various inscriptions such as Hosanna, Excelsis and the trisagion Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, repeated three times by the Holy Trinity: that of the Father in yellow, for light; that of the Son in red, a symbol of martyrdom; and that of the Holy Spirit, orange, a synthesis of the other two. Apparently, for the pinnacles of the towers, Gaudí was inspired by the stems of a plant called cat's nails (sedum nicaeensis). Each tower is inscribed with the name in Latin and the word Apostolus along with a sculpture of the apostle it represents. Likewise, each apostle is related to a zodiacal constellation, according to the correspondence established by the Venerable Bede in the VIII century: Saint Peter would be Aries, Saint Andrew Taurus, and so on.
The towers act as a bell tower and will contain a total of eighty-four bells, common and tubular: on the Nativity façade, tubular percussion bells; in that of the Passion, tubular bells of resonant organ; and, in that of Glory, bells tuned with the notes mi, sol, do. Gaudí carried out complicated acoustic studies to achieve perfect sound. Inside the towers there are spiral staircases again inspired by an organic element, a type of sea snail called a turret (turritella communis).
The towers of the evangelists are topped by the allegorical figures that represent them in Christian iconography (Tetramorphs): Saint John, the eagle; Saint Mark, the lion; Saint Matthew, the angel; and San Lucas, the ox. The project for these figures was the work of the sculptor Xavier Medina Campeny. The terminals of the towers have a height of 22.5 m, made up of three different parts: the base is made up of four lines of hexagons with the inscriptions Al·leluia and Amen surrounded by herringbone-shaped ceramic palms; In the central part there is an icosahedron intersected with a sphere covered with ceramic trencadís and Venetian glass, which contains the lighting sources; and, as a finish, there are the sculptures of the Tetramorphs, winged and with an evangelical book with the initials of each evangelist.
Likewise, these towers contain four-meter granite gargoyles, made by Etsuro Sotoo, with various shapes that symbolize the evangelists: John's has seven scrolls, like those written in the Apocalypse; Mateo's is shaped like a bag of money, in reference to his job as a tax collector; Mark's is in the form of a sheet, in reference to a young man who was seen running naked with a sheet that flew away from him, the night Jesus was arrested; and Lucas's is a doctor's bag, with its corresponding instruments.
These towers will each have two spotlights that will illuminate the street and the tower of Jesus at night. Likewise, they are related to the signs of the Zodiac, the four elements and the four stages of the path to knowledge:
| Evangelist | Symbol | Element | Zodiacal sign | Knowledge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Mateo | Angel | Air | Aquarius | Intelligence |
| San Lucas | ox | earth | Taurus | Will |
| San Marcos | lion | Fire | Leo | Value |
| San Juan | Eagle | water | Scorpio | Silence |
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The tower of Mary is located above the apse and is topped by a large twelve-pointed star, symbolizing the morning star. In addition, it carries several iconographic elements alluding to the Virgin, such as the Hail Mary and various flowers as a symbol of the attributes of the mother of Jesus. These elements are found at the base of the tower, between the windows, grouping together a phrase and a flower: Ave Maria gratia plena, lily as a symbol of chastity; Dominus tecum, daffodil as a symbol of eternal life and the triumph of divine love; Benedicta tu in mulieribus, thrush as a symbol of humility; and Benedictus fructus ventrus tus Iesus, jasmine as a symbol of purity. The top of the tower consists of three parts: the crown, made of stone, and 6 m high, with twelve wrought iron stars at the top; the lantern, 18 m high, made of concrete with a white and blue trencadis coating, in the shape of a hyperboloid and finished in three arms that support the superior star; and the star, a twelve-pointed dodecahedron with a diameter of 7.5 m, made of textured glass with a stainless steel structure, illuminated from within.
Lastly, the tower of Jesus will be connected by four bridges with the towers of the evangelists and will be topped by a large cross with six arms, 13.5 m: in its central part there will be a lamb, as well as the inscription Tu solus Sanctus, Tu solus Dominus, Tu solus Altissimus and the words Amen and Hallelujah . Each of the four arms of the cross will have powerful beams of light that will be visible from great distances, in remembrance of the biblical passage that defines Jesus as "I am the light of the world" (John, 8:12). In his Inside, the tower of Jesus will be divided into three floors, which will symbolize the creation of the universe and the phrase related to Christ "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John, 14:6). In the interior walls there will be an enameled ceramic mosaic that will cover the entire tower up to half height, which will represent the firmament as God's creation, as well as the Holy Spirit; is being projected by Etsuro Sotoo.
Of the set of six central towers, construction began on the Jesús tower in 2015 and the rest in 2016, after preparing their base on the central nave of the temple. The works on the María tower were completed on November 29, 2021 with the placement of the star at the top of the tower, and it was inaugurated on December 8 with a series of cultural events. Of the towers of the evangelists, the first two, dedicated to Lucas and Marcos, were completed with the placement of their respective sculptures in November 2022. On December 16 of that year they were illuminated for the first time. The other two, of Juan and Mateo, are scheduled for the year 2023, while that of Jesus it is estimated that it could be finished in 2026.
According to the forecasts of the construction team, when the structure of the towers is ready, the Sagrada Familia will be the tallest building in Barcelona.
The outside
On the outside, the cloister stands out, which surrounds almost the entire perimeter of the temple, only interrupted by the main façade, that of Glory, which is why it is U-shaped, measuring 115 × 82.5 m. This original solution devised by Gaudí contrasts with the traditional arrangement of the cloister in the atrium of early Christian basilicas or located to one side of the church in monasteries and cathedrals medieval. He did so to isolate the temple from the outside —both acoustically and climatically— and to favor procession traffic. Like the rest of the project, it is four meters above ground level and its total length will be 240m.
For the windows of the exterior walls, Gaudí devised three different typologies, to achieve a transition from the original neo-Gothic to the new naturalist structure applied in his last years: the first level, under the choir, is neo-Gothic; the second, on the choirs, presents an elliptical hyperboloid surrounded by four circular ones, on a frieze of elongated openings; the third, which corresponds to the central nave, also has an elliptical hyperboloid surrounded by two hyperboloids of revolution, also on four elongated openings, with the inscription Gloriam in the center.
Between the windows of the side naves are Solomonic columns with the inscriptions aurum, thus, myrrham (in Latin, gold, incense and myrrh) and oració, sacrifici, almoina (in Catalan, prayer, sacrifice and alms), and topped by the Greek letters α (alpha) and ω (omega). Other inscriptions alternate on the exterior walls, such as Jesus, Maria, Joseph ; Sursum corda; Full Gratia; Ora pro nobis.
The windows of the side naves end in a pediment, the vertex of which is surmounted by a basket of fruit (apples, figs, oranges, peaches, almonds, plums, pomegranates, cherries, pears, persimmons, chestnuts, and medlars), which symbolize the rain of fruits of the Holy Spirit that falls on men. For their part, the pinnacles of the central nave present the symbols of the Eucharist: grape grains crowned by a chalice and ears of wheat crowned by a host. Various trades are also represented (carpenters, painters, dyers, weavers, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, builders, potters, glassmakers and boilermakers), each symbolized by the objects that most represent them. The fruits and trades are the work of Etsuro Sotoo. On the mullion over each window there are Founding Saints (from Birth to Passion): Saint Jerome, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Joseph Calasanz, Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Philip Neri, Saint Joan of Lestonnac, Saint Joseph Manyanet, Saint Joseph Oriol, San Juan Bosco, Santa Joaquina de Vedruna, San Antonio María Claret and San Pedro Nolasco.
At the intersections of the cloister with the façades, Gaudí designed portals dedicated to the Virgin: on both sides of the Nativity façade, the Virgen del Rosario and the Virgin of Montserrat; on the Passion façade, the Virgen de la Merced and the Virgen de los Dolores. Especially notable is that of the Rosary, which Gaudí chose to demonstrate how the rest of the temple should be decorated. The portal is presided over by the Virgin with Child, flanked by Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine. Other scenes reproduce: the Death of the Just One, with the Virgin showing the Child Jesus to a dying man, to provide relief; the Temptation of Women, represented by a monster in the shape of a fish that offers a woman a bag of money; and the Temptation of Man, symbolized by a devil offering a worker an Orsini bomb, used by anarchists at that time. On each side of the door are the kings David and Solomon and the prophets Isaac and Jacob. Likewise, there is a great profusion of roses that adorn the entire portico, and phrases such as the last words of the Hail Mary: Et in hora mortis nostrae, Amen. The sculptures on the portal, the work of Llorenç Matamala, they suffered severe damage during the Civil War and were restored between 1982 and 1983 by Etsuro Sotoo. On the outside, this portal is topped by a lantern whose pinnacle is in the shape of an aloe blossom (Aloe arborescens).
In the four corners of the temple there will be three obelisks for each one, representing the cardinal points, the four seasons, the Christian fasts (Temporas), related, in turn, to the priestly orders, the cardinal virtues represented symbolically, as well as symbols of Saint Joseph (lily), the Virgin Mary (crown) and Jesus (varying in each group). Finally, each central obelisk will carry three of the twelve stanzas of Daniel's hymn of the children of Babylon (Trium puerorum), one of the lateral ones Sancte Joseph, Ora pro nobis and the other, Sancta Dei Genitrix, Ora pro nobis, Deo gratias. They have the shape of a hyperboloid in their central part, while the upper part is a triangular truncated pyramid with three final semicones.
| cardinal point | Station | Fast | Priestly Order | Virtud | Symbol of Jesus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North | Winter | Advent Printer | orders | Prudence (hucha and snake) | Emmanuel (God with us) |
| East | Spring | Lent Printer | subdiaconate | Early (brown and knife that cuts bread) | cross and INRI |
| South | Summer | Printer of Pentecost | diaconate | Justice (sword and scale) | sun and cross |
| West | Autumn | September Printer | preset | Fortress (yelm and clamp) | with alpha and omega |
The interior
Gaudí evolved from an initial neo-Gothic project towards a personal, organic style, inspired by the forms of nature: to get rid of the Gothic buttresses, he devised the use of columns in the shape of a tree trunk, which allow the weight of the covered directly on the ground, a practical as well as aesthetic solution, since it converts the interior of the temple's naves into an organic space that resembles a forest. In 1987, the foundations of the naves began; in 1997, the side vaults were completed and the central one began, finished in 2000; with the vaults of the transept and the apse, in 2010 the entire temple was covered.
The interior of the temple will be like a forest. (...) The pillars of the main nave will be palm trees; they are the trees of glory, sacrifice and martyrdom. Those of the lateral ships shall be laurels, trees of glory, of intelligence.Antoni Gaudí
Gaudí made the calculation of the main nave using graphical statics, which was published by his assistant Sugrañes in 1923. From 1985 it was necessary to expand and adapt them to current regulations, so a team of architects made up of Carles Buxadé, Joan Margarit, Josep Gómez, Ramón Ferrando and Ágata Buxadé calculated all the naves conceiving a continuous reinforced concrete structure from the foundations to the vaults.
The temple has a Latin cross plan, with five naves 90 m in length and a transept with three naves 60m; the central nave is 15 m wide, and the lateral ones 7.5 m, making a total of 45m; width of the transept, 30m. The height is 45 m in the vaults of the central nave and 30 m in the while those of the transept reach 60 m. Gaudí structured the entire plan based on a fundamental module of 7.5 m, which for him was the measure of the ideal "tree-man", the perfect proportion given by nature. The Greeks already established a standard measurement of the human body where the head would be 1/7 or 1/8 of the total; thus, 7.5 is the mean between the two. So we see that the length of the temple is 90 m (7.5 × 12), that of the transept 60 (7.5 × 8), the width of the temple 45 (7.5 × 6), that of transept 30 (7.5 × 4), and that the total height of the building —in the tower of Jesus— is of 172.5 m (7.5 × 23).
The side naves contain the choir choirs. The apse is lobed, with an ambulatory around the presbytery. It has seven chapels, of which the Santísimo is used as an oratory: it has a stone altar from Montserrat, on which there is a silver tabernacle surrounded by an aura of light and, on this, a copy of the relief of the Sagrada Familia made by Josep Llimona that is in the crypt. The tabernacle is the work of Joaquim Capdevila and presents a relief of vertical lines that resemble ears of wheat, together with a cross and the phrase "I am life"; inside the lid there is a sacred shape that in turn represents the world, surrounded by other smaller ones with a cross in the center, on a golden background.
The temple contains a total of 36 columns, ranging from 11.10m to 22, 20 m high, with bases of star polygons on various sides depending on their location: six (side naves), eight (central nave), ten (Evangelists towers), twelve (Jesus tower). The construction materials vary from Montjuïc stone to granite, basalt or porphyry for the cladding, on a reinforced concrete structure. They have a double-turn helical shape (right-hand and left-hand), similar to the growth of some trees or shrubs: a A possible source of inspiration would be species such as the abelia (Abelia floribunda) or the oleander (Nerium oleander). These columns fork at the height of the capital —in an ellipsoid shape— and they branch again at a higher height, so they certainly resemble trees.
For the vaults, in the shape of hyperboloids, Gaudí used the construction technique of the Catalan vault or "tabulated vault", which consists of superimposing several layers of bricks with mortar. The skylights of the vaults contain symbols made of colored glass: on the side vaults, the symbols of Jesus, Mary and Joseph; in the central one, the chrismon of Christ with his attributes (cross, scepter, sword and sign of infinity). The domed vault of the apse is covered with a golden mosaic that represents the garments of God covering the celestial vault, the work of the ceramicist Jordi Aguadé. It is a hyperboloid 17.5 m in diameter, made with two basic geometric shapes: a triangle (God) inside a circle (the world as creation). Between the folds of the garments appear the heads of seraphs, while between the support columns appears the trisagion Holy, Holy, Holy, in yellow, red and orange colors, for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lastly, the transept dome represents the Throne of God and the Lamb, made up of a hyperboloidal central skylight, 4 m span> in diameter, surrounded by golden rays; it is flanked by another twenty-four skylights, arranged in two concentric circles of twelve, symbolizing the twenty-four elders described in the book of Revelation 4, 6-10. Above this dome is a large room, called the "cruise room", which It will be the first level of access to the tower of Jesus Christ. It is circular, 20 m high, with tiers around the central skylight, clad in red Venetian glass and tile on the roof. It was built between 2010 and 2014.
The roofs are pyramidal in shape, surmounted by a lantern. The large windows are designed to distribute soft and harmonic lighting, creating a seclusion effect, and have an abstract geometric shape. Gaudí carried out in-depth acoustic and lighting studies to achieve perfect sound and lighting inside the temple. Likewise, he designed the lamps, furniture and liturgical objects of the Sagrada Família: sacristy cabinets, benches for the officiants, skirts, pulpits, confessionals, tenebraries, lecterns, paschal candle holders, etc.
Like the exterior, the interior has great religious significance, with three ways representing various concepts: from the Glory façade to the apse symbolizing the Way of Humanity (Via Humanitatis); from the Nativity façade to the Passion façade, the Via de Jesucristo (Via Christi); and the cloister represents the Way of the Church (Via Ecclesiae). In turn, the naves of the temple represent the militant Church, the crypt the penitent and the central altar the triumphant On the other hand, the Sagrada Familia represents the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem, for which Gaudí based himself on the book of Revelation (verses 21 and 22): as well as in the biblical text the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven and dwells among humanity, the Sagrada Família is located in Barcelona, which symbolizes the group of all the peoples of the planet.
For the central altar, Gaudí's project contemplated that a seven-armed lamp would hang from the highest clerestory in the apse, symbolizing the Holy Spirit. The altar is framed by a triumphal arch formed by the columns of Peter and Paul, and their ramifications that come together in the hyperboloid of the vault. These columns each have a ring with an inscription: Peter, pastor of the Church and Paul, apostle of our people. From these rings hangs the canopy that covers the altar, which has inscribed the hymn of Glory of the Ordinary of the Mass. It has the shape of a heptagon, made of metal about five meters in diameter, from which hang bunches of grapes (in glass), leaves of vine (copper) and spikes (white wood), with parchment sides and tapestry cover, all covered in twenty-two-carat gold leaf. In the parchments, the work of the nuns of the monastery of San Benito de Marganell, appear inscribed the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Intelligence, Counsel, Strength, Science, Piety and Fear of God), the work of the calligrapher Josep Batlle. Fifty oil lamps hang from the canopy —as in San Juan de Letrán—, as well as a figure of Crucified Christ of 1.90 m, by Francesc Fajula, sculpted according to a design that Gaudí made for the oratory of the Casa Batlló, made at that time by Carles Mani. The altar is made up of a block of Iranian porphyry measuring 3 m span> in length and 7500 kg in weight. Next to the altar, the episcopal stalls were located, which have engraved the names of the three holy bishops of the archdiocese of Barcelona: San Severo, San Paciano and San Olegario, in addition to the theological and cardinal virtues and, in the center, a dove representing the Holy Spirit, the work of Francesc Fajula. To the left of the presbytery there is a porphyry ambo, the work of Jordi Bonet, with the inscription "word of God"; behind it, there is a support for the Paschal candle designed by Gaudí.
The clerestory corresponding to the Nativity and Passion façades include Saint Joseph and Saint Mary, sculptures made by Ramón Cuello; with the crucifix on the altar, they complete the Holy Family. In the skylights of the vaults there are glass diffusers with anagrams of Jesus, Joseph and Mary in the side naves, and the chrismon and the attributes of Christ (cross, sceptre, sword and infinity sign) in the central one, the work of Antoni Vila. Inside, there is also the Gospel through the mass of each Sunday of the year, with the corresponding epistles (Advent, Christmas, Septuagésima, Lent, Easter and Pentecost); the prayer is also represented with the canonical Hours, each one with its final hymn:
- Maitines: Miserere (Psalm 51/50) and Te Deum laudamus, in the songs and under the central cimborium.
- Laudes: Benedictus Dominus Jesus Israel (Luke 1, 68-79), inside the facade of the Passion.
- Vespers: Magnificat (Luke 1, 46-55), in the apse.
- Complete: Nunc dimitis (cantic of Simeon), inside the facade of the Birth.
The columns inside have a variety of symbols: the four in the transept are dedicated to the evangelists, the twelve that surround the transept to the apostles (Saint Peter and Saint Paul next to the altar) and the rest to the continuing bishoprics of the apostolic work: those of Catalonia (Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida, Gerona, Vic, Urgell, Solsona, Tortosa and Perpignan) on the transept; from the rest of Spain (Mallorca, Valencia, Zaragoza, Granada, Burgos, Seville, Valladolid, Toledo and Santiago) in the central nave; and, on the sides, the five continents.
The windows inside the temple are covered with stained glass, designed by the Catalan glassmaker Joan Vila-Grau between 1999 and 2016. He used glass of different colors to represent various themes. The stained glass windows of the transepts were the first to be installed, following Gaudí's original idea. The lower side stained glass windows represent the saints and sanctuaries of the dioceses represented in the columns in front of the windows. The upper stained glass windows show the parables of Jesus (from the Glory façade, Birth side, to Glory, Passion side): I am forgiveness, I am the good Samaritan, I am the good shepherd, I am the truth, I am the way, I am the life, I am the source of living water, I am the light, I am the door, I am the sower, I am the one who speaks to you, I am the bread of life, I am the alpha and omega. The stained glass windows in the apse symbolize the Advent antiphons; those of the transept of the Passion represent water, resurrection and light; and those of the Nativity transept poverty, birth and life. The windows of the central nave lack color —they are different textures (printed glass) of translucent glass—, since they were made with clear glass to symbolize purity and allow more light to enter.
In the interior cantilever there will be the Eucharistic symbol of fish, some swimming towards the altar with their mouths open and others returning with the Sacred Form in their mouths, like faithful thirsty for the Eucharist. Twenty-four monstrances of polychrome ceramic, each 3,325 m meters high, which present the Sacred Form in its upper part, as a half-hyperboloid twin with a horizontal axis, with a spherical cap surrounded by pyramids and a vertical axis hyperboloid body with three windows, inside which is a chalice; They are the work of the potters Jordi Aguadé and Antoni Cumella. Likewise, in the middle of the ramifications of the columns there will be flamboyants, amphoras and symbols of Christ.
In 2010, the interior of the temple was completely covered, a fact that allowed its dedication as a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on November 7 of that year. For this event, several recently created works were inaugurated following Gaudí's instructions: a bas-relief on the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the work of Domenec Fita; The sculptures of Saint Joseph (on the Nativity side) and the Virgin Mary (on the Passion side) by Ramón Cuello, made of travertine, were installed in the transept and with a height of 2.80 m; and the decoration of the capitals of the central columns of the transept was placed, those of Saint Peter and Saint Paul —with their symbols, some keys and a sword and a book, respectively—, and those of the four evangelists, with the signs of the Tetramorphs framed by a methacrylate ellipsoid, the work of Domènec Fita. The altar and the episcopal stalls were also placed and, over the altar, the hanging canopy was installed, with the figure of Crucified Christ by Francesc Fajula. Finally, an organ was installed, built in the Blancafort de Collbató workshop.
Detail of the interior
Sideship, Passion Façade
Sideship, Birth Facade
Baldaquino
Representation of Creator God
Statue of the Virgin Mary
Vitral
The Organ
The organ consists of two bodies —with a total of 1,492 pipes— and three keyboards, two of them manual and the third pedal. It has twenty-six registers, that is, twenty-six different types of sounds, and in its bowels there are computers that memorize combinations of registers and sounds so that the organ can play alone, without the need for an organist.
Disposition of records:
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- Copula: II/I, I/P, II/P
Construction team
During Gaudí's time, many of his disciples and assistants collaborated with the architect, such as Francisco Berenguer, Josep Maria Jujol, Josep Francesc Ràfols, Cèsar Martinell, Joan Bergós, Francesc Folguera, José Canaleta and Juan Rubió. On his death, another of his disciples, Domingo Sugrañes, took over the works and completed the construction of the three towers on the Nativity façade that were still pending.
After a period in which the works were stopped, in 1944 they were resumed by a team made up of Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig i Boada, Lluís Bonet i Garí and Francesc Cardoner, who took over the management in 1983. This team was mainly in charge of of the construction of the Passion façade, for which he followed the plans and models left by Gaudí, trying to follow as faithfully as possible the personal and unique style of the modernist architect.
In 1985 Jordi Bonet i Armengol was appointed director, with a team that included Carles Buxadé, Joan Margarit, Jordi Faulí i Oller, Josep Gómez, Mark Burry and Jordi Coll i Grifoll. This team was mainly in charge of the interior part of the temple and managed to cover the vaults of the central and lateral naves. Once again, the criteria set by Gaudí were followed, although with small innovations, especially in the use of new materials such as concrete and in the application of new technologies, such as CAD design and 3D projections. This modernization of working methods was due above all to the New Zealand architect Mark Burry, the first to use computer-aided design on the Sagrada Família.
Since 2009, a large part of the works on the temple have been outsourced in a 12 ha space located in the town of Galera (Gayá), where they are built. prefabricated post-tensioned stone modules that are later placed in the temple, thereby achieving great savings in time and production costs.
In 2012, Jordi Faulí i Oller replaced Bonet as director of the works, commissioned by the Board of Trustees of the Sagrada Familia Construction Board. Carles Buxadé, Joan Margarit and Josep Gómez Serrano continue to be the Facultative Director of the temple.
Direction of works:
- 1882-1883 Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano
- 1883-1926 Antoni Gaudí
- 1926-1936 Sugrañe Sunday
- 1944-1966 Francesc Quintana
- 1966-1974 Isidre Puig i Boada
- 1974-1983 Lluís Bonet i Garí
- 1983-1985 Francesc Cardoner
- 1985-2012 Jordi Bonet i Armengol
- 2012- Actual Jordi Faulí i Oller
Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano
Antoni Gaudí
Francisco Berenguer
Sugrañes Sunday
Jordi Bonet i Armengol
Jordi Faulí i Oller
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The Museum
The Sagrada Familia has a space set up as a museum, located in the basement of the temple, in the lower part corresponding to the transept, where the workshops were formerly located. Inaugurated on June 29, 1961, it shows Gaudí's original plans and drawings, models of the temple and various objects related to the project, among which the liturgical furniture designed by Gaudí stands out. Also noteworthy is the inverted polyfunicular model of rope and weights to calculate the structure of the building and design the shape of the Colonia Güell church on a 1/15 scale, on which Gaudí based many of the structural solutions for the Sagrada Familia.
The museum also has a room dedicated to the architect's collaborators, as well as an audiovisual room. In addition to the samples referring to the Sagrada Familia, different objects, plans, drawings and photographs on the various works of Gaudí are also exhibited, as well as biographical testimonies of the architect. There are also temporary exhibitions dedicated to different aspects of the Gaudinian project.
On the other hand, the space formed by the Sagrada Família Schools, which were moved in 2002 to one side of the Passion façade, act as an exhibition space, with a reconstruction of a school classroom and study of Gaudí.
Schools
On the corner between Calle Sardeña and Calle Mallorca, next to the Passion façade, is the Sagrada Familia Schools building, built between 1908 and 1909 by Gaudí to provide education for the children of the workers of the temple, as well as other children from the neighborhood. Gaudí conceived a simple and efficient construction, with all its components adapted to the maximum rationalization and cost reduction. The materials had to be the best adapted to their function and both the shape and the dimensions of the building had to be precise to offer a minimum cost and a low construction effort.
The building has a rectangular plan 10 × 20 m and 5 m high. It consisted of three classrooms, a hall and a chapel, with toilets in a body added to the building. The construction was made with exposed brick, in three superimposed layers, following the traditional technique of the Catalan vault. The pavement was made of portland cement over a layer of limestone. The building forms are undulating, giving the structure a feeling of lightness but at the same time great resistance. The structure is based on three beams arranged in a vertical inside, which support another horizontal beam located in the center, forming I-shaped profiles that support wooden boards on which the brick roof rises. The different inclinations create the conoidal geometric shapes, which confer a series of concave and convex curves. The load-bearing walls are also curvilinear in plan, with a progressive inclination from the ceiling to the ground, made with bricks placed vertically in a joint breaker.
Schools were severely damaged on July 20, 1936, at the start of the Civil War. A part of the facades collapsed, the central girder and some pillars were deformed and the wooden roof fell. In September of that same year, the Council of the New Unified School commissioned Francesc Quintana to rebuild it, whose works were completed in July 1937. In 2002, the building was moved from its original location, on the land of the Gloria façade., to the current one, on the corner between Sardinia and Mallorca.
Impact
Throughout its history, the temple has been the subject of various criticisms and controversies, both artistic and urban, political, economic, religious and social. One of the most recurrent has been its link with Catalan nationalism, since it has been a frequent meeting place and vindication of nationalist acts. In the artistic field, the Gaudí project had defenders and detractors from its beginning: among the first were associations such as the Regionalist League, the Spiritual League of the Mare de Déu de Montserrat and the San Lucas Artistic Circle, together with personalities such as José Torras y Bages, Joan Maragall, Josep Carner, Joan Llimona, José Pijoán or Joaquín Folch y Torres, as well as the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya; among the latter, was the group of Noucentista architects, the style that succeeded and displaced modernism, headed by its theoretician, Eugeni d'Ors, as well as the art critic Feliu Elias and the satirical magazine L' 39;Esquella de la Torratxa.
The temple of the Holy Family is a great work of art; of this we are fully convinced here and out of here, its fame has pierced our border.Joan Llimona, La Veu de CatalunyaJanuary 20, 1906.
I cannot think without terror of the destiny of our people, forced to sustain, upon their own normality, so precarious, the weight, the greatness, the glory of these sublime abnormalities: the Holy Family, the poetry of Maragall...Eugeni d'Ors, Glosari1906.
On the other hand, since the restart of the works in the 1940s, an intense debate arose about whether it was appropriate to continue the works or not, alleging his detractors that Gaudí had not left enough indications and its continuation would undermine his project; On the other hand, the defenders of continuing the works were based on the multiple indications left by the architect to his assistants and disciples, as well as the drawings, models and photographs that left a record of the project outlined by Gaudí, not to mention its multiple manifestations recognizing that the project would be the work of several generations.
The definitive impulse to continue the works was decided by the ecclesiastical hierarchy within the celebration in 1952 of the XXXV International Eucharistic Congress. However, the critical voices did not silence: in 1959, the architect Oriol Bohigas He gave a lecture entitled Problems in the continuation of the Sagrada Familia, in which he stated that "the continuation of a temple of the characteristics of the Sagrada Familia is a social and urban error".
On the other hand, on January 9, 1965, a group of architects, intellectuals, critics and professionals from various fields published a letter-manifesto in La Vanguardia questioning the continuity of the works; among the signatories were: Le Corbusier, Bruno Zevi, Giulio Carlo Argan, Nikolaus Pevsner, Gio Ponti, Roberto Pane, Gillo Dorfles, Camilo José Cela, Alexandre Cirici, Oriol Bohigas, José Antonio Coderch, Nicolás María Rubió Tudurí, Ricardo Bofill, Antoni Tàpies, Salvador Espriu, Joan Miró, Joan Brossa and Josep Maria Subirachs —who, paradoxically, would later be the sculptor of the temple—, as well as the College of Architects of Catalonia, the Association for the Promotion of Decorative Arts and the School of Architecture of Barcelona. However, there was a broad popular response in defense of the continuity of the project, which resulted in a record collection for the promotion of the works.
Similarly, in 1971 a new manifesto signed by 123 architects was published in the press against the continuation of the temple, which called for the stoppage of the works, the transfer of the building to the State or the municipality, the restoration of the work Gaudiniana and the call for an international competition to evaluate the future of the project. Also, in 1976, an entire seventy-page edition of the magazine CAU (Construction-Architecture-Urbanism, no. 40) to evaluate and censor everything built since the death of Gaudí.
Another debate arose in 1987 with the choice of Subirachs for the realization of the sculptural group of the Passion façade, as he was a sculptor with an avant-garde and abstract style far removed from the initial style of the temple, more realistic. On July 10, 1990, there was a demonstration in front of the temple against the work of Subirachs, organized by the magazine Àrtics, which did not find great popular support. Faced with criticism of being one of the signatories to the 1965 manifesto, Subirachs claimed that “I disagreed with the way it ended. When I accepted the commission it was because they respected this condition of doing it with a free style. I have not changed my mind, but the works board".
In 2009 a new manifesto entitled Gaudí on Red Alert was published, sponsored by Fomento de las Artes Decorativas, which denounced interventions in various works by Gaudí declared World Heritage Sites. The signatories stated that “continuation works have given rise, over the years, to a systematic continuation of grievances. Today it is no longer known, nor is it made known to anyone, where the author's work begins and where it ends.
A new controversy arose over the works on the Barcelona Sants-La Sagrera high-speed tunnel, which ran along Calle Mallorca, next to the foundations of the main façade of the Sagrada Familia, and which could endanger the integrity of the set. Although in front of two of the facades of the temple there are already metro stations at a very short distance and depth, the construction of the tunnel led to a campaign of rejection, in which neighborhood associations, the Barcelona City Council, the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Ministry of development. Technicians from various universities supported this campaign. The completion of the works in 2011 without incident put an end to the controversy.
Over time, the majority of public opinion has been in favor of the temple, today one of the indisputable emblems of Barcelona. Proof of this is the change of opinion of the architect Óscar Tusquets, one of the signatories of the 1965 manifesto, who in 2011 published an article in El País entitled How could we be so wrong?, in which he recognized the success in the continuity of the works. Or, on the other hand, the change in attitude of the City Council, originally indifferent if not reluctant to the construction of the temple, and which changed its mind when the Sagrada Familia was awarded the City of Barcelona Architecture award in 2010.
In recent times, criticism has focused on the excess of tourism and the damage derived from the influx of public for the residents of the area. Regarding the carrying out of the works, in 2016 the Association of Neighbors of the Sagrada Familia filed a complaint for non-compliance with urban regulations, considering that the columns of the Gloria façade invade between 20 and 50 cm the sidewalk of Calle de Mallorca.
Other remarks
Temple visit
The Sagrada Familia is open to the public between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. in winter and between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. in summer. Access for visitors is located on Calle Marina. There are various types of tickets: simple, combined with the Gaudí Museum in Park Güell or with an audio guide in different languages. The tickets for the elevator are bought at the time of entering the temple, it is therefore important to know which one will go up (Nativity or Passion). The general entrance and the elevator entrance work with time bands of fifteen minutes and the approximate duration of the audio guide is ninety minutes. In the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, mass is celebrated every Sunday at 9 in its central nave, and two daily masses in the crypt (one in Catalan and the other in Spanish).
Multimedia
- The British progressive rock group The Alan Parsons Project dedicated a song to the monument in 1987, on the conceptual CD Gaudíwhere they honored the life and works of the Catalan architect.
- Also, the Barcelona music group Pyramid dedicated a album to Gaudí called Gaudi's Legacy. In this disc homage to the architect you can find references to the Sagrada Familia.