Yes, we have already mentioned it before: the Sagrada Familia is, year after year, the most visited monument in Spain. And it is not by chance that every year the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia receives millions of visitors, being the most visited church in Europe after St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

The Sagrada Familia is the great masterpiece of the architect Antonio Gaudí, and the best reflection of his artistic fullness. The great symbol of the city of Barcelona and of Catalan modernism that you cannot miss during your stay in Barcelona.

The idea of building a temple dedicated to the Sagrada Familia arose around 1866, when the bookseller Josep Maria Bocabella founded the Spiritual Association of the Devotees of Saint Joseph with the aim of raising funds for the cause.

Even so, the first stone of the Sagrada Familia was laid in 1882, under the direction of the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano. A year later, Villar would give up the project, which would pass into the hands of the young Gaudí, who was only 31 years old at the time. He would dedicate the next 43 years of his life doing so.

During all the years in which Gaudí worked on the project of the Sagrada Familia, he developed and devised numerous models and documents, being aware that it would be a work that would culminate in later generations.

Thus, Antonio Gaudí made several models of the Sagrada Familia made of plaster and to scale, which represented its most significant parts. This has allowed the various architects who have taken up the project to continue working on it until today. Its completion is planned for 2026.

It is necessary to emphasize that the complete work of the temple, contemplates three facades; the one of the Nativity which can be finished in almost its totality by Gaudí himself; the one of the Passion, whose execution in the sculptural iconography is in the hands of Josep María Subirachs to whom corresponds the great advance of the work during the years 80; and the facade of the Glory that has not yet begun and that will give the beginning to a great avenue that is thought to arrive to the Mediterranean sea.

Gaudí loved and admired Nature, and it was there that he sought the source of inspiration for all his work. According to Gaudí, "the architect of the future will be based on the imitation of nature, because it is the most rational, lasting and economic of all methods".

Perhaps it is this persuit for beauty and imitation of the sublime of nature that produces this special attraction to Gaudí's masterpiece. A spectacle of geometric forms and impossible curves that make up an incomparable visual spectacle.

Antonio Gaudí, one of the most prestigious and internationally recognized Spanish architects, dedicated most of his life to designing the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia was undoubtedly the project on which he put most effort and on which he managed to combine in a masterful way all the elements that characterise his work.

It is said that Gaudí possessed an innate sense of geometry and volume, as well as an unparalleled imagination. He rarely made detailed plans of his works. Most of the time, as with the Sagrada Familia, he worked on three-dimensional models, modelling the details as he thought them out.

Of the construction and design of the Sagrada Familia, it is said that Gaudí was so immersed in the work that he only thought about the temple he was building, to the point of neglecting the rest of his life.

Surely one of the things that will call you most on your visit to the Sagrada Familia is its colorful stained glass windows. Gaudí said that "the sun is the best painter". And so, the sun bathes and paints the space of the temple, creating a rich and diverse atmosphere.

However, Gaudí himself left few indications regarding the stained glass windows of the Sagrada Familia, perhaps because they were part of the final development of the work. But he did start an investigation about the stained glass windows which has been the basis of his later development.

Joan Vila-Grau, the designer of the stained glass windows of the Temple, has declared that each stained glass window is different and a singular work, although all together they form a work of greater magnitude. Stained glass windows that, as Gaudí would have wished, manage to break with the light balance of the Gothic cathedrals.

One of the great attractions of the Sagrada Familia, and one of the reasons why we encourage you to visit it, is the so-called Sagrada Familia Museum, which is located inside. The museum was opened in 1961 in the semi-basement of the Passion façade, with the initial intention of bringing together all of Gaudí's work in order to continue his work.

This primitive nucleus, together with the subsequent extensions and reforms, forms part of the current museum that focuses the exhibition on the construction work of the church. Thus, by visiting this museum - which contains various reproductions of models and research by Gaudí - you can learn in a unique way about the construction process of the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia, a symbol of the city of Barcelona.