Sagrada Família will be finished by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death
Thursday, October 22, 2015 @ 6:08 PM
BARCELONA'S iconic – but unfinished - Sagrada Família Cathedral will be completed by the year 2026, the 100th anniversary of its designer's death.
The brainchild of flamboyant modern architect Antoni Gaudí, whose other works include the Parc Güell in the same city and a restaurant in Comillas (Cantabria), plans for the temple were drawn up in 1883 and work started in 1886.
It was still under construction in 1926 when Gaudí was run over by a bus, and failed to recover from his serious injuries.
Works have been ongoing ever since under the auspices of nine different architects, although very slowly, and diggers and cranes have almost become an integral decorative feature of the Catalunya capital's best-known tourist attraction.
The current architect Jordi Faulí i Oller took over the reins in 2012, and says that by 2017 the central towers will start to become 'visible' from the ground if work starts on them as planned next year, and should be mostly finished by the year 2020 'aside from a few pinnacles'.
During a presentation in the Sala Creuer ('hall of the cross'), another new addition to the cathedral, Faulí said the lower part of the towers were already in place and that there would be six in total – the Tower of Jesus, the Tower of Mary and the four Towers of the Evangelists.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com