Spain longest-ever building project looks set to miss its 2026 deadline due to the pandemic, but work is still in progress and will not stop until the construction team has finished; they have already taken 134 years, so a few more are unlikely to breach planning permission terms and conditions.
Barcelona’s Sagrada Família Cathedral, one of the country’s top attractions – beautifully weird, tastefully wacky, totally unique – began its journey in 1883, when the plans were rubber-stamped. The first bricks of what was set to be the most global masterpiece of flamboyant modern architect Antoni Gaudí were laid in 1886.
Other high-profile works of Gaudí’s – including Barcelona’s psychedelic mosaïc-patterned Parc Güell, and the green-and-red restaurant in Comillas (Cantabria) – have long since been finished, but the Sagrada Família is still being built.
Even if Gaudí had lived a normal life expectancy, he would never have been able to see the finished result – but he was barely able to see the bare bones of it since, in a tragic and cruel twist of irony, 40 years after work started, he was run over a bus right next to his splendid cathedral-to-be and did not survive his injuries.
Since 1886, a total of nine architects have been on the job, handing over the reins to each other as they retired, and only a handful of the builders who have been involved in the Sagrada Família’s construction will still be alive to see it finished, even if they all lived, or live, to a ripe old age.
The final, self-imposed deadline by the works team was the year 2026, so as to have the cathedral 100 percent finished by the centenary of Gaudí’s death. But the pandemic has put back some of the plans – lockdown meant only essential building work, typically that considered to be for solving structural emergencies in domestic or key commercial properties, was able to be carried out.
Also, a reduction in available funding to continue at the same pace. Given that much of the funding for the works comes from the entrance charge – and given that there was practically no tourism this year and none at all during the lockdown months – the amount the Sagrada Família Constructors’ Board has been able to invest in the job this year has taken a sharp nosedive.