SAGRADA FAMÍLIA

Description

Essentials about the Sagrada Família in brief

It is the most important landmark of Barcelona and undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary churches in the world: the Sagrada Família. No trip to Barcelona should end without a visit to the Sagrada Família. To this day, the church is the unfinished masterpiece of the Catalan star architect Antoni Gaudí. Construction on the church has been going on since 1882. According to current plans, it should be completed in 2026 on the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death. Sections of the facade and the crypt of the Sagrada Família have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2005.

The history of the Sagrada Família

The idea of the Sagrada Família

The idea for the construction of the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Basilica and Temple of Atonement of the Holy Family), as the church is called in long form, came from Josep Maria Bocabella, a local owner of a religious bookstore and author of Christian writings. Returning from a trip to Italy and impressed by the large churches there, he decided in 1874 to have a large church of atonement built in his hometown, financed only by donations. Thanks to generous donations, the association he founded was able to acquire the building site of today’s church, a plot the size of an entire city block with 12,800 square meters of floor space in the Eixample district, which was still completely undeveloped at the time. The official architect of the diocese, Francesc de Paula del Villar, volunteered to be the architect.

Del Villar rejected Bocabella’s idea of building a replica of the Basilica of Loreto in Italy, and designed a simple three-nave church with no special features, a mighty low crossing tower and a slender facade tower, in the Neo-Romanesque-New Gothic style in keeping with the taste of the time.

The first construction phase under the architect del Villar

The laying of the foundation stone in 1882 was attended by a young, still fairly unknown architect who had already worked in del Villar’s office as a student: Antoni Gaudí. At the time of the laying of the foundation stone, Gaudí was an employee in the office of Joan Martorell, who took on the role of inspector for the project. Only a year after the start of construction, there was a falling out between the construction management and del Villar, so that the latter resigned and the project was offered to Martorell. Martorell declined, however, as he had played a major role in the disagreement, and instead proposed his young collaborator Gaudí.

The new architect Gaudí

Gaudí completed the crypt, which had already been started, essentially according to del Villar’s plans by 1889 (the vaults, however, are already a Gaudí reworking). Simultaneously with the construction of the crypt, Gaudí began to fundamentally redesign the plans for the church. As early as 1885, he presented a new overall concept in which the 18 towers are already recognizable, albeit still on a smaller scale than in the current project, and still very clearly dominated by the Gothic formal language.

The exterior wall of the apse, completed in 1893, is already far higher than del Villar’s project. Although it is still very much imbued with the neo-Gothic style, it already clearly shows Gaudí’s signature in its idiosyncratic treatment of the Gothic forms and the naturalistic gargoyles and pinnacles.

The new plans for the Sagrada Família

Shortly before work began on the Nativity facade, Bocabella and Gaudí were prompted by a particularly large anonymous donation to substantially enlarge the plans for the church. Gaudí developed the basic concept of a gigantic 18-tower basilica with five naves. The start of foundation work for the four-towered façade in 1894 marked the simultaneous beginning of the implementation of this ambitious new project.

From now on, the basic concept of the church was to be changed only slightly. However, the architectural language underwent even more enormous changes in the course of time. All the developmental steps in Gaudí’s architectural language, from idiosyncratically interpreted Gothic and Baroque historicism to an exuberant Catalan modernism and Gaudí’s abstract expressionist late style, can also be read in the various design solutions for the church. The result was a creation whose floor plan, room layout, and grand lines allude to the Gothic, but in the end go far beyond it.

With the plans significantly enlarged, it soon became clear that rapid completion was not to be expected. Gaudí was to work on the church for 43 years, the last 15 of them exclusively. Asked about the impossibility of early completion, Gaudí replied, “My client is in no hurry.”

Gaudís death

Of the three facades, Gaudí began work on the Nativity facade facing north-east, representing the birth of Jesus Christ. During his lifetime, however, he was only able to complete one tower of this facade (dedicated to St. Barnabas), because Gaudí died in a streetcar accident in 1926 (tragically, on his way to the Sagrada Família). It was only after several interruptions that work on the Nativity façade was finally completed in 1935.

The Sagrada Família in the Spanish Civil War

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, anti-clerical groups burned down part of the Nativity façade and partially destroyed the crypt. They killed the spiritual director of the Sagrada Família, who was very good friends with Gaudí and lived below his studio. There also the original building plans, the meter-high plaster models and drawings of the architect were stored. Much was lost at the time and the plaster models were badly damaged. As a result, the Catalan regional government took possession of the designs in order to protect them.

The Sagrada Família after the Spanish Civil War

After the end of the war, architects and collaborators who had worked with Gaudí in his younger years got together and helped to reconstruct the models from the remaining rubble and the surviving photographs. The use of ruled surfaces in the designs proved to be a stroke of luck, as even a small fragment of a ruled surface could be used to reconstruct the entire area with mathematical precision.

From 1950 onwards, construction could finally be continued. The later architects Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig Boada and Lluís Gari tried to implement Gaudí’s ideas as well as possible on the basis of the reconstructed models and orally transmitted thoughts. In 1976, the four towers of the Apostles were completed above the Passion façade, which represents the Passion of Christ. Eight of the towers have thus now been completed.

The towers of the Sagrada Família

When completed, the Sagrada Família will have a total of 18 towers. Twelve will be dedicated to the apostles. Four of them each tower over one of the three facades with a height of 90 to 112 meters. All towers, whose shape is supposed to recall the crook of the bishops, have long vertical embrasures. Filigree colorful spires, decorated with animals or sacred symbols and sayings, bear a small golden cross with the name of the respective apostle. Some of the towers are even connected by narrow stone bridges.

Four other towers will be dedicated to the evangelists and the two remaining towers to Mary (125 meters high) and Jesus Christ. Christ Tower will be the main tower of the basilica and, according to the plans, will tower over all the others. It is to rise exactly above the crossing and, with a calculated height of 172.50 meters, would exceed the highest church tower in the world to date (that of the Ulm Cathedral) by more than eleven meters. The height has been chosen so that the church will not be higher than the surrounding mountains of Barcelona, in order not to let the work of man become higher than the work of God.

The interior of the Sagrada Família

Inside, the incredible size and magnificence of the Sagrada Família becomes clear. The interior has a very large vault height: the side aisles are 30 meters and the nave and transept are 45 meters high, the crossing has a height of 60 meters and the vault above the apse of 75 meters. The vaults are supported by stone columns. They are supposed to be reminiscent of trees and therefore have branches at their upper ends, which are divided into branches like tree trunks. In addition, a canopy of leaves is indicated. The apse consists of seven small side chapels, which are dedicated to joy and sorrow. In addition, two sacristies are to be built on each side. After the interior was completed in November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the church and elevated it to the rank of basilica.

Under the apse is the crypt of the basilica. When Gaudí took over as site manager, construction of the crypt had already begun, so no major changes to the plan were possible, but Gaudí raised the vault enough to allow light and air to stream in from above. The crypt is in neo-Gothic style. It is approximately a circular building with an area of about 120 square meters, flanked by seven individual chapels in a semicircle. Opposite, in a line, are the three main chapels, flanked on the left and right by two more. Mass is said from the central chapel, and to the right are the chapel of the Virgin of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia, and the chapel of Christ with the tomb of Josep Maria Bocabella i Verdaguer. On the other side are the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament and the Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, where Antoni Gaudí is buried.

The Sagrada Família as an object of dispute

During the long construction period, there were repeated protests against the construction of the Sagrada Família. Signature campaigns were organized several times (in some cases with prominent participation) to stop construction on the gigantic house of worship. The construction work is still financed, as conceived by Josep Maria Bocabella, exclusively through donations and contributions from foundations as well as entrance fees.

Despite the protests against the Sagrada Família, the church is one of Barcelona’s main sights with over two million visitors annually. Today, visitors can see the interior and the completed towers of the basilica.