La Sagrada Familia

The '99% Invisible' episode '281- La Sagrada Familia' delves into the story of Barcelona's most famous cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi. The cathedral draws millions of visitors each year, who come to marvel at its unique, organic-looking architecture, which stands in stark contrast to traditional Gothic cathedrals. Despite its appearance of antiquity, most of the church was constructed after Gaudi's death in 1926 and remains unfinished to this day. The architects who have continued Gaudi's work face the challenge of interpreting his vision without the benefit of his direct guidance, relying on fragmented plaster models and Gaudi's innovative design principles rooted in nature and religion.

Gaudi grew up in Catalonia, a region with a strong sense of identity and a history of tension with the Spanish state. His deep Catholic faith and fascination with nature's designs heavily influenced his architectural style. Gaudi considered God the ultimate architect and aimed to reflect divine creation without surpassing it, which is why La Sagrada Familia's height is deliberately set to be shorter than Barcelona's Montjuic mountain. His work on the cathedral was part of a larger religious and social context in Barcelona, where industrialization had led to widespread poverty and disease, and left-wing movements were gaining traction against the conservative and Catholic establishment.

When Gaudi died tragically after being hit by a tram, he left behind a cathedral with only the crypt, one wall, and one tower completed. His plans for the rest of the church were detailed in models and drawings, which were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War by anarchists who saw the church as a symbol of oppressive religious and state power. After the war, a small group of architects and craftsmen attempted to piece together Gaudi's vision from the ruins, a task that would take decades and be hindered by debates over whether the project should continue at all. It wasn't until the advent of computer-aided design and specifically parametric design software, which mirrored Gaudi's own process of adjusting models to see how changes affected the whole structure, that significant progress was made on the interior of the church.