The word unique is used way too much nowadays, but La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudí’s magnum opus in Barcelona, is a rare architectural marvel that really is one-of-a-kind.
This remarkable edifice, which has been compared to everything from a science-fiction fantasy to “spirit symbolised in stone,” has captivated, inspired, and, yes, even repelled visitors for over a century. Famously unfinished, the church has been under construction since 1882. But just two years from now, this massive project, the labor of generations of architects, sculptors, and builders, will finally be complete.
Architectural Digest spoke to two architects about the significance of Gaudí’s masterpiece, how he changed architecture, and what to look for if you decide to see it in person in Barcelona.
History of La Sagrada Familia
Though intimately linked with Gaudí, the project actually started with a different architect. The idea for the Roman Catholic church known popularly as La Sagrada Familia came from a 19th-century Catalan bookseller, José María Bocabella. His vision looked a lot different from what you see today—he wanted to recreate the Gothic Basilica della Santa Casa of Loreto, Italy, in Barcelona. Funded through donations, the first architect of La Sagrada Familia, Francisco de Paula del Villar, planned for a neo-Gothic structure beginning with the crypt. Work started on the site in 1882, but Villar quit the following year after disputes with the project’s promoter. At this point, only the crypt had been built.
Taking over for Villar was architect Antoni Gaudí, a Catalan nationalist who’d found a patron in the industrialist Eusebi Güell (the namesake of Parc Güell, or Park Güell in English), and had already made a name for himself with his modernist designs. Gaudí jettisoned Villar’s plans and came up with something entirely new, planning a revolutionary structure around the existing crypt that would not only nod at but also improve upon and exceed its original neo-Gothic inspiration.
“He would’ve preferred to have started over, but that was infeasible,” says Jordan Rogove, cofounder and partner of New York City’s DXA Studio and affiliate professor of architecture at Virginia Tech. “He dispensed with the faithful adherence to Gothic principles, and starting with the design of the apse (a semicircular recess covered with a semi-dome where the altar sits), removed the buttresses and added rounded windows. As design work for the three main façades commenced, he abandoned all vestiges of the previous design and went in an entirely new direction.”
Gaudí saw a melding of the most basic floor plan of a neo-Gothic church, transformed by his fascination with nature and geometry. He saw 18 spires climbing to the sky, each representing the most important figures in Christianity, including the 12 disciples, the four evangelists, and the Virgin Mary.
