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This Basilica Has Been Rising Above Barcelona for 144 Years. With Its Central Tower Now Complete, Pope Leo XIV Prepares to Visit
Key takeaways
- It shed the latter title in February, when a massive white cross was added to the tallest of the cathedral’s 14 towers.
- Sagrada Família started as a much less ambitious project in 1882.
- “There was such a commitment, and he knew it was never going to be done in his lifetime,” architect Tom Gallagher tells Smithsonian magazine’s Lauren David.
It shed the latter title in February, when a massive white cross was added to the tallest of the cathedral’s 14 towers. Now, Pope Leo XIV is preparing a trip to Spain to bless the tower and mark the symbolic completion of the structure Antoni Gaudí first envisioned—although interior work remains to be done.
Sagrada Família started as a much less ambitious project in 1882. When the original architect Francisco de Paula del Villar resigned, Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí took over and reimagined the church as a towering structure combining Gothic style with elements inspired by nature. He was just 31 at the time and already on his way to becoming one of Spain’s most famous architects. Sagrada Família, which was merely a quarter of the way complete at the time of death in 1926, is his most iconic work.
“There was such a commitment, and he knew it was never going to be done in his lifetime,” architect Tom Gallagher tells Smithsonian magazine’s Lauren David. “He took on a project that would take over 100 years to finish and got rid of a lot of his other projects just so he could dedicate himself to it.”