Where we are?
In the choir of the Sagrada Família, above the entrance to the nave.
What should I pay attention to?
See what beautiful light, colored by the stained glass, and the columns branching as they ascend: it is a forest!
Did nature inspire Gaudí?
Nature was Gaudí’s teacher.
How many singers can fit here?
Six hundred at a time. We have tried it. And he sees its wrought iron railings.
They look like pentagrams.
Of liturgical hymns! You can sing them, if you know how to read them.
Did Gaudí design it like that?
Here everything is as Gaudí wanted.
But Gaudí died ago…
On June 10, 1926, hit by a tram.
Almost a century! How do you know what Gaudí wanted?
Accompany me to my office.
…
See this model of the Sagrada Familia?
Plaster, beautiful.
See this notebook?
Tight text.
Do you see this sketch of the temple’s floor plan?
Detailed drawing.
Everything by Gaudi! Guidelines for his disciples, plus what he built, pattern for the entire temple.
And what do we have to do now?
The chapel of the Assumption, 2024. The tower of Jesus, 2025. And we will crown it in 2026: the four-armed cross.
I see here the model of that cross…
Today I am meeting with artists candidates to represent the Paschal Lamb that will go inside, in its upper part.
Will I one day be able to enter the cross?
Up to twelve people. The cross will measure 17 meters high by 13.5 meters on a side, with glass walls: the highest views of Barcelona, ??at 162 meters high!
I ask for a batch, Mr. Faulí.
And then the main entrance, the Glory cover!
Spectacular, I see in this model.
Supported by fourteen fine columns, above your head a glorious vaulted sky will rise 55 meters high!
They look like organ pipes…
A narthex of lanterns, twenty skylights: majestic!
And that wide staircase at the entrance?
It will pass over Mallorca Street: Gaudí designed it when in front there were two plots of land without houses up to Diagonal.
And when were the current blocks of houses built?
At the beginning of 1975 Núñez i Navarro made contacts and obtained permission from the Barcelona heritage commission, blessed by Fine Arts of Madrid.
The block of Mallorca will have to be expropriated to comply with Gaudí…
It is not yet time to talk about that, we will talk to the City Council and find a fair solution for everyone.
You owe it to Gaudí’s plan, of course.
Until the end of my days! The Sagrada Família will be entirely built as the genius of Gaudí dreamed and planned.
You don’t doubt one bit.
Because this is bigger than all of us. These shapes had never been seen before in architecture.
¿No?
It is an unknown architecture that today astonishes the world: that is why Barcelona will be the world headquarters of architecture in 2026.
What is its main uniqueness?
The use of hyperboloids, paraboloids, conoids and helicoids.
And what does that translate into in this work?
In that it does not need buttresses. And it generates skylights. And the columns with a square base, rising in their double rotation, become circular columns from above…
What else do you admire about Gaudí?
He dialogued with stone cutters, plasterers, carpenters, ceramists, blacksmiths, bricklayers, sculptors… and captured what each one could contribute. And she was interested in everyone.
Did Gaudí have his portrait painted here?
He refused. But when he died, a disciple modeled his face on the figure on the boat of Saint Joseph, portal of Hope.
Since when have you seen the Sagrada Família?
Since I was born, three blocks from here.
How did you get into this work?
Jordi Bonet, my predecessor, examined me: I drew him a double-turned column.
To visit the temple, any advice?
Behold! The temple speaks to everyone who looks at it, it says something to each one.
What would Gaudí say if he visited him today?
That it is the living expression of the people who do it, that that is what he projected.
Thank you! And keep an eye on the tram…
Ha, ha… I like how it is looking on this stretch of Diagonal, down here.
