Construction of a controversial stairway is set to continue beyond new completion date that comes 144 years after work started on Antoni Gaudí's basilica
Construction of a controversial stairway at Antoni Gaudí's basilica is set to continue beyond new completion date that comes 144 years after work startedBarcelona’s Sagrada Família basilica has a new completion date of 2026 that comes 144 years after the first stone was laid.
Although the building is set to be complete by 2026, work on sculptures and decorative details and, above all, the controversial stairway leading to what will eventually be the main entrance, is expected to continue until 2034.Germany performs political and cultural high-wire act on Gaza “We are following Gaudí’s plan to the letter, he said. “We are his heirs and we can’t renounce his project. The plan presented to the local authority in 1915, which was signed by Gaudí, includes the stairway.”
Before the advent of mass tourism, work was to be funded exclusively by donations from repentant sinners, which made cash flow unpredictable and many doubted that the work would ever be completed. The poet Joan Maragall described the basilica as “the poetry of architecture ... a temple that will never be finished, that is constantly becoming”.