The magnificent Sagrada Familia in Barcelona has been under construction for more than 140 years. The project should end very soon with the inauguration planned for 2025 or 2026.
More than 140 years after construction began, Antoni Gaudi’s masterpiece begins one of the last chapters in its history. On Sunday evening, the four evangelistic towers of the Sagrada Familia were illuminated for the first time after they were blessed by the Archbishop of Barcelona during an extraordinary celebration. “It is a great satisfaction because it is the beginning of the end of the work on Sagrada Familia. We have finished the most important phase”, he explains La Dépêche du Midi President of the Sagrada Familia Foundation, Esteve Camps.
\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 Sagrada Familia almost finished?
\u26ea This Sunday, November 12, the famous Catalan basilica inaugurated four new towers
\u21aa\ufe0f However, it should be completed only in ten years pic.twitter.com/yP5qK9QtM6
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) November 13, 2023
“Two facades, that of the birth of Jesus and that of the Passion of the Lord, have been completed. After the grand opening of Mary’s Tower two years ago, with these four towers we have now completed the central towers. Only the tower of Jesus Christ, the largest, is missing. It is 172 meters high and we will officially open it if everything goes well in late 2025 or early 2026 for the hundredth anniversary of Gaudí’s death. Hit by a tram on the way to church, the Catalan architect died in 1926.
“God has all the time in the world”
The towers of St. Luke and St. Mark, completed in 2022, and the towers of St. Matthew and St. John, completed last September, are each 135 meters high and are crowned by a huge 4.5-meter statue of an angel, an eagle, a lion and a bull in white stone. . They will be illuminated every evening until the Epiphany in early January.
\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 The Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona celebrated Sunday in light of the completion of the Evangelist Towers, with which the monument is moving toward the end of its construction that began 141 years ago #AFP #AFPTV \u2935\ufe0f pic.twitter.com/tfmFEQpO6M
— Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) November 13, 2023
“My client is in no hurry. God has all the time in the world,” said Antoni Gaudi with a smile. But after 141 years of operation, delivery is approaching and the cranes will soon be gone. In 2026, when the most impressive tower, that of Jesus Christ, will be completed, then almost the entire Sagrada Familia, conceived as a “hymn to God”, will be finished. All that remains is to develop the facade of Glory, the main entrance, planned for 2033. “Obviously it will be finished soon,” confirms Esteve Camps. “This is thanks to the progress of technology, but also the return of tourism, which is our only source of financing.”
ES_ November 12, 2023 was part of the history of the Sagrada Familia because it was the day he inaugurated the group of four towers of the Evangelist!
They are joined by the Tower of the Virgin Mary, inaugurated on December 8, 2021, as… pic.twitter.com/plSTshSR0H— La Sagrada Familia (@sagradafamilia) November 12, 2023
Absent during Covid, the massive return of visitors made it possible to speed up the project, which really took on a new dimension almost 15 years ago. “With the opening of the basilica in 2010, we greatly increased our reception capacity. The inauguration by Pope Benedict XVI that year, broadcast around the world, was a huge publicity stunt. “People will come from all over to see what we have done,” Gaudi predicted. He was not wrong: today, to visit the most popular monument in Spain, it is necessary to make a reservation several days or even weeks in advance.
“I’m dazzled,” says Françoise, a retiree from the Hautes Alpes, visiting the basilica for the first time. “Normally I don’t like churches, but this is amazing. Everything is thought out, done. There is art, mathematics, nature. It’s wonderful!” Next door, her husband, Jacques, is delighted with this announced completion of the work. “We had the impression that it would never end, that this work was endless and that in 50 years they would still be there. It’s nice to see that we are getting closer to the end.” “We work a lot. It is very intense, explains the president of the Sagrada Familia Foundation, but when we see the fruits of this work and can admire the result, it is an immense satisfaction.