MOST MAGNIFICENT CHURCH BUILDINGS IN THE WORLD

Sagrada Família

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família commonly known as the Sagrada Família,
is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, designed by Catalan architect
Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
and in November 2010 was consecrated and proclaimed a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI.
Though construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in 1882, Gaudí became involved in
1883, taking over the project and transforming it with his architectural and engineering style—
combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms.
Gaudí devoted his last years to the project and at the time of his death in 1926, less than a
quarter of the project was complete. Sagrada Família’s construction progressed slowly as it
relied on private donations and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War—only to resume
intermittent progress in the 1950s. Construction passed the mid-point in 2010 with some of the
project’s greatest challenges remaining and an anticipated completion date of 2026—the
centennial of Gaudí’s death.
The basílica has a long history of dividing the citizens of Barcelona—over the initial possibility it
might compete with Barcelona’s cathedral, over Gaudí’s design itself, over the possibility that
work after Gaudí’s death disregarded his design, and the recent possibility that an
underground tunnel of Spain’s high-speed train could disturb its stability.
Describing Sagrada Familia, art Critic Rainer Zerbst said “it is probably impossible to find a
church building anything like it in the entire history of art” and Paul Goldberger called it ‘the
most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages’.