La Sagrada Família

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  • Address
    Carrer de Mallorca 401, L'Eixample
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  • Phone
    93 207 30 31
  • Website
  • Transport
    underground rail: Sagrada Família

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Lonely Planet review

La Sagrada Família is truly awe-inspiring. Even if you don't have much time, don't miss it. The most ambitious work of Barcelona's favourite son, Antoni Gaudí, the magnificent spires of the unfinished cathedral imprint themselves boldly against the sky with swelling outlines inspired by the holy Montserrat.

The spires are encrusted with a tangle of sculptures that seem to breathe life into the stone. Gaudí died in 1926 before his masterwork was completed and, since then, controversy has continually dogged the building programme. Nevertheless, the southwestern (Passion) facade, with four new towers, is complete, with only decorative detail to be added, and the nave, begun in 1978, is progressing. Some say the shell should have been left as a monument to Gaudí, but today's chief architect, Jordi Bonet, argues that the completion of La Sagrada Família must progress, as the building is intended to atone for sin and appeal to God's mercy on Catalonia.