The Sagrada Familia is in Plaça de la Sagrada Familia, her conditions
are good. The church is today under construction and consequently the interior
is opened and suffers like the exterior of weather inclemency's. Instead of
that, the building is in general terms in good condition.
To arrive you can take this Buses: 19, 33, 34, 43, 44, 50, 51, B20, B24,
N1, N7 and Metro: L2, L5 (Sagrada Familia)
Visits: Open all the days: from October to March from 9 to 18 h., from April
to September from 9 to 20 h. Phone (34) 93 207 30 31.
The Sagrada Família is the best known work of Gaudí, this huge project
in which he worked all his life -in fact he lived inside until his death- was
started in 1882 by the architect F. Villar i Lozano with a project in neo gothic
style.
Gaudí undertook the work direction in 1883 changing not only the aesthetic of
work, but giving to it a gigantic dimension with eighteen bell towers representing
the Apostles, four towers representing the Evangelists, one representing the
Virgin Mary, and the biggest one with 170 meters high, crowned with the cross
of four branches typical of Gaudí, symbolizing Jesus Christ. Every window, column,
element and shape referrers to saints, institutions or mysteries of catholic
faith.
Today surpassing 100 years from it's start, the works follow with the timing
of a medieval cathedral, not really too quick !!, nevertheless the optimistic
think in a end of works into the first quarter of XXI century .
At the present stage, only eight of the twelve bell towers for the Apostles
are completely finished, and Gaudí only built before his death -at the age of
74, trampled by a tram in 1926- four of the apostles towers , the apse, and
the Nativity façade.
The gothic plant of the church is a Latin cross with five longitudinal aisles
and a large apse with six chapels. An external cloister enclose the ensemble.
Three façades, (two of them finished and explained below -the Nativity and the
Passion ones-) have the mission to illustrate in an understandable way the mystery
of the birth, passion and resurrection -glory- of Jesus Christ.
The polemic on the works continuation from 1952, was due to lack of original
drawings, mainly destroyed during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939).