La Catedral

Save
  • Address
    Plaça de la Seu, La Ribera
  • Show map Close map
  • Phone
    93 342 82 60
  • Transport
    underground rail: Jaume I

Let us know if these details are incorrect

Lonely Planet review

Approached from the broad Avinguda de la Catedral, Barcelona's central place of worship presents a magnificent image. The richly decorated main (northwest) facade, laced with gargoyles and the stone intricacies you would expect of northern European Gothic, sets it quite apart from other churches in Barcelona.

The facade was actually added in 1870, although it is based on a 1408 design. The rest of the building was built between 1298 and 1460. The other facades are sparse in decoration, and the octagonal, flat-roofed towers are a clear reminder that, even here, Catalan Gothic architectural principles prevailed. The interior is a broad, soaring space divided into a central nave and two aisles by lines of elegant, slim pillars. The cathedral was one of the few churches in Barcelona spared by the anarchists in the civil war, so its ornamentation, never overlavish, is intact.