25th June: Antonio Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia

Today is the birth date of Antonio Gaud¡ (1852), Spanish architect famous for his unique and highly individual designs. He designed the still unfinished Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. 10 things you may not know about Gaudi's magnum opus:

1. It's not a cathedral. Although it is the size of one, it's a Basilica, and not, as a cathedral must be, the seat of a bishop. Barcelona has an actual cathedral as well, The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and St. Eulalia.
2. Gaudi wasn't the original designer - when construction began in 1882, the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar was in charge, and he had in mind a more traditional Gothic design. He resigned in 1883, and Gaudi took over.
3. Gaudi dedicated 40 years of his life to the Sagrada Familia. It would have been more if he had not been run over by a tram in 1926. At that time, 15 to 25% of the work had been done. He was even buried in its crypt.
4. The Sagrada Familia is still not finished. No-one is quite sure when it will be completed. Some estimate 2026, which would be the centennial of Gaudi's death, but others say it will be more like 2028 or even 2041. When Gaudi was asked about the extremely long time the building would take to complete, he commented, "My client is not in a hurry." It was consecrated in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, so the finished parts can be used for religious services.
5. Its full title, The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, includes the word "Temple" which indicates the construction was entirely funded by donations. Nowadays an admission fee is charged to tourists who want to go inside, and those fees are used to continue the construction. As the Sagrada Família is the most visited monument in Spain with 3 million visitors every year, that's quite a lot of money.
6. When complete, the building will have 18 towers (representing the Apostles, the Virgin Mary and the tallest, Christ himself) and three grand façades: the Nativity façade to the East, the Passion façade to the West, and the Glory façade to the South. So far, there are eight towers and two completed façades. The tallest tower is 560 feet tall. Gaudi was adamant that it should not reach 984 feet above sea level, because then it would be taller than the mountain of Montjuic, and Gaudi believed that the highest point in the city should be something that was made by God Himself.
7. Gaudi was inspired by nature, and this is reflected in his design. The building does not have straight lines or angles, and the pillars are intended to taper and branch out like trees. Two of the pillars are supported by stone animals, a turtle and a tortoise, representing the sea and the land respectively.
8. The church is a UNESCO heritage site.
9. The organ was installed in 2010. It has 26 stops (1,492 pipes) on two manuals and a pedalboard. However, the size and shape of the church are such that it poses acoustic challenges - so it is planned to install several more organs around it. They will be designed to either be played separately, or simultaneously with the major one, from a single console. When this happens it will effectively be an organ with 8000 pipes.
10. Construction ground to a halt during the Spanish Civil War and didn't start again until the 1950s. Although the building itself wasn't damaged during the war, anarchists did destroy some of the plans and models of what they saw as a conservative religious icon.