ART AND HISTORY

From First Stone to Consecration
A project started well over 100 years ago  is still under construction.
All the steps of a story in which Providence seems to be the main actor.

by Lorenzo Margiotta

When Benedict XVI consecrated the Sagrada Família on November 7th, more than 128 years had passed since the laying of the first stone, on the Feast of Saint Joseph in 1882. The date was not chosen by chance, since the original idea for the church came from a group of faithful belonging to the Spiritual Association of St. Joseph. It was they who decided to build a church in Barcelona dedicated to the Holy Family. In 1881, they managed to buy a piece of land on the outskirts of the capital. It was to be an expiatory church and its construction, sustained only by free offerings, was meant to become an explicit means of the redemption of society.
The first architect to whom it was entrusted was Francisco Villar, who proposed a rather conventional Neo-Gothic project. During the first year, work proceeded slowly and Villar was forced to resign. They ­ chose, as the new project manager and director of operations, the young and promising Gaudí, who, at only 31 years old, accepted the job that would change his life. He would never live to see the end of the project that he hoped to complete in less than ten years. Scarce donations forced Gaudí to undertake the early work according to the directions of Villar, whose project he would gradually reinterpret. He did not agree with the chosen orientation, which was not modifiable thanks to the advanced state of the construction of the crypt. Starting from the construction of the apse, Gaudí made his true contribution, which carried out a series of crucial corrections: he accentuated the verticality of the building with other towers, he raised the arches, he established the floor plan in the form of a Latin cross with three facades, over each of which would stand four imposing bell towers.  Where the nave and transept meet, Gaudí imagined a tower dedicated to Mary, upon which he would raise a cross over 500 feet high.
The complexity of the edifice forced him to build many models thanks to which he explored geometric shapes at the time never before seen in architecture. The unique modernity of Gaudí is found in his capacity to preserve in architecture the organic complexity of nature. “My master is the tree in the garden that faces my window.” The playful, happy aspect of his architecture is not the result of eccentricity, but of a close relationship with tradition and in-depth geometrical research.  Gaudí did not build according to a pre-established project, but he developed his own ideas as he went along and he personally dealt with even the most minor technical or building issue.
In the final years, the building of the church became his very life. When, in 1914, work was suspended due to lack of funds, Gaudí reached the point of asking for alms personally and selling part of his own property in order to finance the work. He turned down all other commissions and put the finishing touches on the continuation of the church, which he foresaw being finished in approximately two centuries. “It is Providence,” he affirmed, “that, according to its high designs, brings the work to completion.” In order to leave a precise idea of his intentions to his successors, the architect decided to not proceed with building the overall structure, but rather to concentrate on the façade of the Nativity. That allowed him to see the completion of the first tower-campanile in the last months of his life. In June of 1926 he died after three days of agony. His successor was Doménech Sugranyes, the last one to have first hand knowledge of the master’s intentions. Work continued at a sustained rhythm until 1936, when Barcelona was overtaken by the Spanish Civil War. Revolutionary and iconoclastic fury set the crypt on fire, as well as the schools and Gaudí’s laboratory.
The cathedral was born once again out of the people. Under the direction of Isidre Puig Boada and Lluis Bonet Garí in 1954, the façade of the Passion was begun, to be finished in 1976. Two years later, Etsuro Sotoo, fascinated by a visit to the Sagrada Familia, applied to work there as a sculptor. He would later carry out hundreds of sculptures and complete the Nativity façade with the 15 angels that Gaudí began more than 100 years earlier.
In the 1980s the work was entrusted to Jordi Bonet i Armengol who, in addition to strengthening its foundations, built the walls that delineate the nave and the aisles, and raised up the pillars and vaults of the aisles.
Today, the cathedral is considered to be ­­­approximately 60% finished. No one knows when the final stone will be set, nor who will be the final architect or stonecutter to work on the cathedral. And yet today you can still forcefully repeat the words of Gaudí: “Look at this final piece! Doesn’t it seem to unite heaven and earth?”