Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi's most important work, the unfinished Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, is Spain's most visited sight. It is commonly described as "amazing," "astonishing," or "awesome," and moving on to the letter "b," "bizarre" is more repeated than "beautiful." Possibly the strangest thing about it is that it is so far from complete that much of its interest lies less in the emerging building than in the process of its construction, from 1882 when the first stone was laid, to the year of its expected completion, estimates of which vary from 2026 to 2041 or even later.

The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is not intended to be a cathedral, but a basilica, a vague term "used by canon lawyers and liturgists... a title assigned by formal concession or immemorial custom to certain more important churches, in virtue of which they enjoy privileges of an honorific character which are not always very clearly defined," according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. It was commissioned by and belongs to a private Catholic organization, not the Church, and was originally intended to be a Gothic construction, though when the original architect Francesc del Villar resigned and was replaced by Gaudi, the latter changed the dominant style to modernisme, the Catalan version of Art Nouveau. Thinking that construction would last for hundreds of years with the techniques available at the time, Gaudi constantly added to or modified the designs throughout the forty years he worked on the temple up until his death in 1926. This, added to the destruction of the architect's plans and models during the Spanish Civil War, meant work on the Sagrada Familia was slow until the nineteen-seventies and eighties, when computing techniques appeared which both facilitated the recovery of Gaudi's original concepts and speeded up the building process.

La Sagrada Familia's most interesting features are its façades, only one of which can be considered finished, its elaborate, nature-inspired, highly symbolic ornamentation, and its fantastic, high, spindly towers, particularly those of the completed Nativity Façade.

A visit to the Sagrada Familia includes the Nativity Façade and the Passion Façade (which you can climb), the nave, transept and cloisters, as well as the museum, various exhibitions and the crypt (where Gaudi is buried). Allow one or two hours.

Click here for Sagrada Familia opening hours, entrance prices, and how to get there.