{"id":23613,"date":"2026-02-20T16:18:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=23613"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:18:23","slug":"a-joyful-day-final-piece-of-sagrada-familias-central-tower-put-in-place-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=23613","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A joyful day\u2019: final piece of Sagrada Familia\u2019s central tower put in place | Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona\u2019s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.<\/p>\n

After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaud\u00ed devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona\u2019s tallest building and the world\u2019s tallest church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Catalan and Vatican flags were raised, Jordi Faul\u00ed, the chief architect for the project, said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a joyful day, wonderful for all the people who have made it possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

A ceremony to mark the completion of the tower \u2013 the tallest of 18 conceived by Gaud\u00ed \u2013 is due to take place on the centenary of Gaud\u00ed\u2019s death in 1926 on 10 June, 16 years after the church was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Workers assemble the upper part of the tower of Jesus Christ\u2019s cross on to the Sagrada Familia.<\/span> Photograph: Enric Fontcuberta\/EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The end to the building at the church is expected in about a decade with the construction of a striking south-facing facade.<\/p>\n

It was nevertheless a day full of emotion for a city that has lived with Gaud\u00ed\u2019s unfinished work for generations and, although there remains much work to do, the temple now defines the Barcelona skyline as much as the Eiffel tower in Paris or the Empire State building in New York.<\/p>\n

For decades it was a building site open to the skies, where generations of stone masons and carpenters worked around the tourists who have ultimately funded the construction. It\u2019s only in the past 15 years, since work began on the breathtakingly beautiful interior, that it has felt more like a church than a building site.<\/p>\n

Here Gaud\u00ed\u2019s geometrical designs have created an oasis of light, with delicate, tree-like columns tapering off to the roof, the white stone of the interior picked out in colours from the stained glass windows.<\/p>\n

The basilica is loved and loathed equally by those who live in Barcelona. George Orwell described it as \u201cone of the most hideous buildings in the world\u201d and regretted the anarchists did not blow it up when they had the chance.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>The Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, Spain, is the city\u2019s tallest building and the world\u2019s tallest church.<\/span> Photograph: Enric Fontcuberta\/EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The anarchists did, however, destroy Gaud\u00ed\u2019s drawings and the plaster model, which years later was painstakingly reconstructed. In the late 1970s, Mark Burry, a New Zealand architect, adapted rocket design software to realise Gaud\u00ed\u2019s design.<\/p>\n

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To those who claim the basilica is nothing like what was originally envisaged, Burry\u2019s retort was that Gaud\u00ed\u2019s geometry is so precise that should there be any deviation from his plan, the building would collapse.<\/p>\n

It is, however, now the work of many hands. There are elements that jar, in particular the Passion fa\u00e7ade, popularly known as Darth Vader fa\u00e7ade, the work of the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs, and yet overall it is unmistakably Gaud\u00ed\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Aside from finishing the details of the main tower, three artists \u2013 Miquel Barcel\u00f3 , Cristina Iglesias and Javier Mar\u00edn \u2013 have been commissioned to present designs for the Glory fa\u00e7ade, which is expected to take a further 10 years to complete.<\/p>\n

The Sagrada Familia is the city\u2019s top tourist attraction, with about 5 million visitors a year and an annual income of roughly \u20ac150m (\u00a3131m), about half of which has so far been spent on construction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#joyful #day #final #piece #Sagrada #Familias #central #tower #put #place #Barcelona<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final piece of the central… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}