The exterior of Gaudí’s church masterpiece now complete after 144 years of construction
The Basilica towering over Barcelona
The exterior of the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, was finally completed this week, 144 years after construction began on architect Antoni Gaudí’s greatest creation.
Last week saw the upper arm of this roughly 56-ft (17-m) tall cross fitted with the help of a giant crane. That final piece, which is nearly 15 ft (4.5 m) tall, completes the grouping of the six central towers of the church – and brings the basilica’s height to a dizzying 566 ft (172.5 m).
Interestingly, the cross was built in Germany using white enameled ceramic tiles, stone interior and glass that were made in the Spanish region of Catalonia. It was then transported in parts back to Barcelona by ferry and trucks, and finally assembled at the church.
Though more work is required in the interior of the church, for the first time in its history all outside cranes will be removed and it will be visible unobstructed.
More information about Gaudi and this church can be found here. I also posted an evening pause about this monumental work of art in 2023.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Basilica towering over Barcelona
The exterior of the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, was finally completed this week, 144 years after construction began on architect Antoni Gaudí’s greatest creation.
Last week saw the upper arm of this roughly 56-ft (17-m) tall cross fitted with the help of a giant crane. That final piece, which is nearly 15 ft (4.5 m) tall, completes the grouping of the six central towers of the church – and brings the basilica’s height to a dizzying 566 ft (172.5 m).
Interestingly, the cross was built in Germany using white enameled ceramic tiles, stone interior and glass that were made in the Spanish region of Catalonia. It was then transported in parts back to Barcelona by ferry and trucks, and finally assembled at the church.
Though more work is required in the interior of the church, for the first time in its history all outside cranes will be removed and it will be visible unobstructed.
More information about Gaudi and this church can be found here. I also posted an evening pause about this monumental work of art in 2023.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I love this for so many reasons.
I need to finally retire and go on that European church tour.
Meanwhile, in the Caliphate of New York City, its residents are treated to this: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/02/islamic-prayer-is-now-broadcasting-streets-new-york/
Decades ago, Samuel P. Huntington wrote about such things in his book Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, but nobody (except, perhaps, the Gramscian radicals in academia and the nether reaches of the Democrat Party who were working so assiduously to undermine it) payed much attention. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/samuel-p-huntington/who-are-we-2/
Now, this process of cultural suicide has become so advanced in Europe that even Catholic Spain may succumb, and the leadership class in England and Northern Europe seems almost joyous in their effective surrender to Islam and their embrace of the authoritarian, one party bureaucratic state.
I toured it some years ago. Gorgeous building. They charge admission to get in, with the money generated being used to fund the construction.
If you have the chance to see it, take a guided tour. In the basement they have models of the original design and show the engineering process behind the building support arches.
Sadly, given what is happening in Spain now, one wonders how long until it is turned into a mosque.
pzatchok,
Put Milan on your list of stops. The Duomo is magnificent. Another church that took, literally, centuries to build.
And, while it isn’t a church, I would also recommend touring the Cimitero Monumentale (Cemetary of the Monuments) if you’re an architecture or sculpture buff. Many of the mausoleums there are multi-story buildings and even the shorter stuff is a wild variety of architectural styles and influences from baroque to modern and including features borrowed from many non-European architectural traditions. Walking through it near dusk one evening nearly a half-century ago, I had the feeling of being in one of those exotic mythic cities from Robert Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories – Shadizar, maybe.
The neatest piece of sculpture in the place – and there is a lot of sculpture in the place – is a bronze atop the tomb of a WW1 aviator killed in action. It depicts a male javelin thrower poised to throw and wearing a WW1-era leather flying helmet. His javelin is a twin-bladed aircraft propeller. His rearmost foot is entangled in the serpentine tresses of the head of Medusa which looks up at him balefully. Marvelous piece of work.
Architects hung lines upside down to let nature dictate lines.
I see an Islamic Spain being a fulcrum between a Latinized New World and an Islamized old world….China and Japan the only others resisting.
No danger hair types…the neo-caliphate will see to that.
Duomo in Florence is amazing, too, as are Cologne Cathderal and St Marks in Venice.
When you consider the time and resources these communities put into these monuments, it is astounding.
Gary-
When you consider the time and resources these communities (citizens of the U.S.) put into these monuments (House of Representatives & the Senate), it is astounding. And we never even get a beautiful building out of it.
Let’s go for a drive….
I-90; Rapid City to Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota
The HighwayMan (June, 2012)
https://youtu.be/L5dTpXtA7H0
10:09
I’m in the minority, but after seeing it up close, my reaction was that this is one butt-ugly building. But YMMV.
Wamphyr:
I took my then fiancée there, because she loved Gaudi. I proposed to her at a bench near the front entrance.
I think it’s time to take her back again!
Thank you Robert for posting this.
I love architecture.
But the sad thing about places like this is that there is little space around them. It would be wonderful if all these places had park space around them.
I’m a Catholic, and something of a traditionalist when it comes to architecture, too, so I have to admit up fron that Gaudi’s work really has always been outside my sympathies.
But it’s a very awe-inspiring church, both inside and out, and it is at least obviously recognizable *as a church*. I’m glad it’s finally reaching completion.
I visited the construction site 30 years ago. The lower towers were accessible then and were nose bleed high. Glad to see it’s complete.
Daniel-
Great story!
Richard M.
Check out “St. Francis de Sales Church” Norton Shores, Mi.
https://stfrancisns.org/
“The parish’s current building, noted for its large poured-concrete, hyperbolic paraboloid form and brutalist design, was designed by modernist architect Marcel Breuer and his associate Herbert Beckhard in 1961. Construction began in 1964, completed for first Mass, December of 1966.”
(Messed up TV reception for the whole neighborhood.)
Flying buttresses for the win.
Meanwhile Mexico City wants an “Earthscraper” that is half Dante’s Inferno, half Transition of Juan Romero.
Popo isn’t far away….I could see venting and cracking reaching it. The quake of 1985 was bad enough on its own without the creature from pit.
Richard M,
I’ll confess to a decided preference for Italianate or Gothic architecture when it comes to cathedrals. The Gaudi building has always looked to me like a cluster of skinny corncobs. It’s impressive in scale, but doesn’t have that “fear of God” quality of more northerly large churches.
wayne,
The St. Francis de Sales church puts me in mind of that old saying “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” Easy to think of that when the church looks like a military ordnance storage bunker. Onward Christian soldiers I guess. I can only imagine what the rabidly anti-Catholic Eve Arden character in ‘The Dark at the Top of the Stairs’ would have made of this martial-looking structure. She was convinced that the basements of all of the Knights of Columbus halls were full of arms and ammunition and only awaiting orders from the Pope to rise and kill all of the Protestants.
Just today I got a book in the mail from anti-Catholic alarmists.
Jeff Wright,
Did that book arrive unsolicited? If so, you are on some very strange mailing lists.
And what sort of anti-Catholic alarmists sent you the book? Protestant anti-Catholics? Orthodox Christian anti-Catholics? Atheist anti-Catholics? Non-Christian religious anti-Catholics? I’m curious.
Dick–
St. Francis de Sales Church–Their original (1948) church is across the street, a tiny classical Catholic Church, very ornate but maybe holds 200 people. Vaguely remember the new one being constructed, nonstop form building & concrete pumping.
It does have that 1945-ish “bunker” type feel to it. Inside however, looks like a full-blown catholic church with stained glass windows on the ceiling. Acoustics were pretty good, considering all the cement. Fallout Shelter was in the basement.
Up until 1980, you could easily access the roof from the back, via a ladder embedded in the wall. A particularly rowdy beer-party was busted by local LEO on the roof one time–access ladder subsequently gated.
To Mr. Eagleson,
The book was unsolicited. The mailbox slot next to mine also had one (the door on it has been off for months).
“The Great Controversy” from Remnant Publications, out of Coldwater MI.
That cost a pretty penny… physically it is a fine paperback. The New Testaments mailed out three decades or so ago (blue cover?) only had newsprint.
Back to art.
Gaudi was nice–but the art…and it IS art…that I fancy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFhEpQe8sQ&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D
Jeff Wright,
Nice link. Delightful lady. Just the sort of immigrant we need a lot more of.
About the book, the author seems to be some sort of Seventh Day Adventist prophetess. Not really much up on 7DA theology – as an atheist, there are far too many Christian sects to keep track of – but I seem to recall they don’t like blood transfusions or organ transplants.
I think the individual who lived here before my mover here in 2005 was on some kind of list…I also get these weird prayer-loom chain mail things that I toss.
Something that makes me fear for our youth:
Asian toys:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JMTSH1U44cw
American toys:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/pjyavhPKOjc
So help me—had I been President—I would have called a missile on whoever came up with that.
Wal-Mart suit:
“ Kids just don’t like space any-“
CLICK
“Yes sir—we will put rockets on the shelves right away.”