Sagrada Família Reaches a Historic Milestone as Gaudí’s Final Tower Is Completed
Barcelona’s Sagrada Família has entered a new chapter after 144 years of construction. The basilica’s Tower of Jesus Christ, completed in February, is now finished, allowing the church to be symbolically inaugurated on June 10 during a mass expected to be blessed by Pope Leo XIV. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez is also due to attend.
The occasion marks the completion of the basilica’s 18th and final tower, but not the end of the project itself. Work is expected to continue for at least another decade, with major remaining elements including the Glory Façade and a monumental staircase. Even so, the moment carries unusual weight in a city that has lived with the building’s slow rise for generations.
Construction began in 1882 under Francisco de Paula del Villar, who planned an expiatory temple in a Gothic Revival style. Less than a year later, Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), then 30, took over and transformed the project into something far more radical: a church conceived as a kind of stone forest, with branching columns and forms drawn from the natural world. He initially promised to finish it within 10 years, then spent the rest of his life revising that estimate upward. “My client is not in a rush,” he famously said, referring to God.
Gaudí’s other major works, including Park Güell, Casa Batlló, and La Pedrera, helped define Catalan Modernism, but the Sagrada Família remained his most ambitious undertaking. He moved into an atelier inside the basilica and died in 1926 after being struck by a tram. He was buried in the crypt, with only a quarter of the work complete.
The project stalled after his death. The Spanish Civil War halted construction from 1936 to 1939 and destroyed most of the designs and models he had left behind. When work resumed in the 1950s, craftsmen, architects, and engineers had to reconstruct his intentions from photographs, plaster models, and memory. That effort continues today, with the basilica still balancing fidelity to Gaudí’s vision against the practical demands of building in the 21st century.
For those who have watched the tower rise over Barcelona, the completion is both intimate and monumental. Mateu Hernández, chief executive officer of Visit Barcelona, described the experience as seeing a familiar landmark anew — a reminder that some buildings become part of a city’s life long before they are ever declared finished.
SagradaFamilia AntoniGaudi Barcelona Architecture CatalanModernism Heritage
