My first encounter with the works and genius of Antoni Gaudí dates back almost 15 years, when my wife suggested a trip to Barcelona, ​​the city where almost a century earlier the architect had begun work on one of the last great cathedrals built in the West. I wasn’t familiar with Gaudí, so I quickly looked at some images of the Barcelona skyline, dominated by a strange church still under construction. I have to be honest: its appearance, so unusual to my eyes, didn’t appeal to me at all. Its forms were far removed from the classical style of a traditional cathedral. It seemed bizarre to me. Nevertheless, I trusted my wife’s advice and drew up a rather comprehensive itinerary of places to visit in Barcelona.

I remember arriving at the Sagrada Familia early in the morning and finding an endless line of people waiting to enter. We were immediately struck by the splendor of the church. What in the photos had seemed like an architectural oddity suddenly became a superb, fascinating, and highly original structure. We bought the ticket and, instead of waiting in line, then decided to enter the crypt to attend Mass. It was accessed from the outside. Inside the crypt, in the Chapel of the Virgin of Carmel, is the very simple and bare tomb of Antoni Gaudí.

Just over a year earlier, in November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the Sagrada Familia as a minor basilica. Later, Pope Leo XIV blessed and inaugurated the Tower of Jesus Christ (also known as the Tower of Christ) of the Sagrada Familia on June 10, 2026, exactly 100 years after the death of Gaudí.

Here you can see the splendid sequence of images of the construction of the Sagrada Familia basilica from its origins to the present day.

When we finally entered the main nave, the view was overwhelming. We weren’t in a church, but in a forest: or rather, in a church shaped like a forest, illuminated by shafts of light filtering through the stained-glass windows, some already colored, others still transparent (they would later be replaced with stained glass) — a brilliant and utterly original structure.

We visited everything we could: the towers and the museum area dedicated to the original construction site, where we could admire Gaudí’s original drawings and sketches. We also learned about the ingenious chain method he used to design the curved forms of the towers and domes. There were numerous plaster or stone models depicting plants and natural geometric shapes, such as shells and other organic elements.

I won’t go on; we entered in the morning and left in the evening, tired but profoundly happy to have come into “contact” with the genius of a man animated by great faith.

A book that finally brings that intuition into focus

What I had only glimpsed when I stood before the stained-glass windows and plaster models of the Sagrada Familia has been made clear to me by Chiara Curti’s latest book — her third dedicated to Gaudí. Gaudí vivo, the title of the volume, doesn’t portray the architect through his works, but begins with his life and lets it emerge, page after page, in his work. It’s a book constructed, as the author herself explains, through firsthand testimony: Curti was able to gather the memories of those who knew Gaudí personally, his “disciples,” people — as Curti writes — who made it “clear that what they received from him wasn’t just technical teaching, but something that had to do with life.”

The book thus tells a surprising story of a young architect, then 31, who, almost by chance, takes over from a colleague who had resigned from the construction of the church in disagreement with the client, and who, through that seemingly fortuitous assignment, discovers a calling that will change his life.

The form does not impose itself, it is discovered

In the Sagrada Familia workshop, among casts of faces, floral models, and forms borrowed from nature, one can experience firsthand what Marco Bersanelli writes in the book’s preface: For Gaudí, architectural form does not arise from arbitrary invention but from the patient recognition of what reality itself suggests. Every shell, every plant, every curve observed in the natural world became for Gaudí a clue to a form already existing, to be discovered rather than invented — almost a mystery that reality carries with it and that the architect has the task of allowing to emerge.

Marco Bersanelli, a physicist and astrophysicist, contributed to the construction of the Tower of Jesus Christ, the tallest part of the building. While on a plane, Bersanelli realized that the shape of the central tower designed by Antoni Gaudí resembles the Friedmann-Lemaître curve, which describes the expansion of the universe. From that insight came the idea of ​​using the interior of the tower to represent contemporary cosmic history: the beginning of expansion at the top and space expanding downward, creating a link between physics and spiritual symbolism.

A childhood made of gaze

This capacity for observation has its roots in childhood. Gaudí was a child of fragile health, often unable to participate in the games of his peers. Instead of withdrawing, he spent much time in the countryside, on the family farm in Riudoms, and on Miracle Beach in Tarragona, observing nature, animals, and the changing light of the seasons — winter dawn, summer dusk — with a wonder that never left him. At the same time, watching his father — a metalworker, capable of transforming flat sheets of metal into curved shapes for the construction of stills — he learned to think of space in three dimensions, not just on paper. It was precisely the intersection of his observation of nature and his father’s manual labor that forged, from an early age, his unique sense of beauty.

Genius and impulsive character

Alongside this contemplative sensibility, Gaudí had a lively and impulsive temperament, which he would strive to tame throughout his life. A university episode illustrates this well: Commissioned to design a cemetery door, he instead presented a drawing of a funeral procession, justifying his design by arguing that there are no cemeteries without funerals. A few years later, in his final-year university project, while the commission president had just presented his own design for the university’s funeral parlor, Gaudí presented a completely different one, with a complex structure to support a large dome. Faced with that confident and original defense, the commission wondered whether they were graduating ” a madman or a genius.” Time, as they said then, would tell the answer.

The Origins of the Expiatory Temple

The Sagrada Familia project was born not from an architectural initiative but from a spiritual movement. It was the Association of Devotees of Saint Joseph, a lay organization founded in 1866, that promoted the construction of a church dedicated to the Holy Family, in an era marked by immigration, social inequality, and epidemics. The project even attracted the attention of Pope Pius IX, who subscribed to the association’s magazine and granted indulgences to supporters. The road to laying the foundation stone was long and arduous, including pilgrimages to Rome, Loreto, and Montserrat, and concluded with the founding of the new Temple for Barcelona, ​​which was not celebrated until March 19, 1882, the feast of Saint Joseph.

A temple built with sacrifices, not with money

From the beginning, the Temple was conceived as a work of expiation: It was to be financed exclusively by the offerings of the faithful, without recourse to public funds or large capital. Therefore, for Gaudí, the amount donated was less important than the sacrifice it represented for the person offering it. A typical example is the story of a wealthy benefactor who, after signing a check more out of insistence than conviction, dismissed the gesture with a polite phrase: “Don’t worry, it’s nothing to me.” Gaudí, instead of expressing thanks as anyone else would have done, tore up the check before his eyes: a gift that cost the donor nothing, he explained, could not serve a Temple built on royal sacrifices.

A “cathedral” born among the poor

The Sagrada Familia was not built in the monumental heart of Barcelona ​​but on the outskirts of the city, in the working-class neighborhood near Sant Martí de Provençals, then a growing working-class suburb. It was precisely for this reason that the people soon began to call it the cathedral of the poor: a Temple that literally grew among those living in poverty.

The turning point: a donation that changes everything

For the first few years, Gaudí continued the project left by the diocese’s previous trusted architect, Francisco de Paula del Villar, without radically altering it but rather focusing on method. Instead of proceeding in horizontal planes, he completed entire sections down to the smallest detail, such as the chapel of Saint Joseph in the crypt. In 1892, after nearly nine years of work, a donation of unprecedented proportions arrived. It was the turning point: Gaudí proposed a completely new project to the promoters, tripling the volumes and heights of the original building. From a church with an 80-meter bell tower the project evolved into a temple with eighteen towers arranged in a pyramid, the tallest of which would reach 172.5 meters — just short of the highest mountain in Barcelona, ​​so as not to surpass God’s work in the city.

We begin with the Rosary

Asked to demonstrate what the project’s new, grand façade would look like, Gaudí chose to begin with a small portal dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. He didn’t begin with a demonstration of his own originality, nor with a purely structural element, nor with a triumphal celebration. He chose to begin with a form of popular prayer, repetitive and accessible, deeply rooted in the life of the Christian people. That choice already encapsulated his entire understanding of the Temple: not the exceptional as a starting point, but what unites ordinary people.

From fashionable architect to “God’s architect”

When he took over the direction of the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí still lived like an architect of his time, an architect who frequented the upper middle class, his natural patron: well-dressed, well-groomed, he arrived at the construction site on horseback or in a carriage to avoid getting dirty. It was the work itself, little by little, that transformed him. As Chiara Curti writes, for him it was not “just another assignment. It was the place where he discovered the value of life and from which he transformed his way of being in the world.” This human “transformation” was so profound and genuine that it implicitly led him to abandon all earthly patronage. He understood that he would have to answer for it to God, allowing himself to be accompanied on a true journey of faith alongside the promoters of the Temple.

Because the work was expiatory — funded solely by private donations — it was impossible to determine when it would be completed. When asked, Gaudí always replied, “My master is in no hurry.” It’s clear who his “master” was.

This process culminated in 1911, when he announced his resignation from all civil duties to devote himself entirely to the Sagrada Familia. The press ridiculed him, but that gesture marked the beginning of a new life. His image also changed: He rejected all pretense, commanded the salary of a simple assistant architect, and, far from seeking recognition, enjoyed being mistaken for a commoner.

A working community, not just a construction site

Living alongside the poor on the outskirts of Barcelona also changed his treatment of workers. Unlike the construction sites of the time, where workers were hired on a daily basis and were constantly changing, Gaudí formed a stable group, which over time became a true family. He paid wages even during strikes and did not retire the elderly, who were then without any benefits. Instead, he assigned them to tasks suited to their abilities, such as distributing water to colleagues, restoring dignity to those who would normally have been left behind.

The children, heirs of the work

Even in his darkest hour, the financial crisis of 1914, Gaudí found a brilliant way to respond. Instead of simply raising funds, he began to guide the children who flocked to the construction site, explaining to them the meaning of what was happening: that it wasn’t about building “a new church,” because “new things are already old,” and that the work wasn’t his, but that of future generations — including those children who listened to him. It was an initiative that certainly didn’t generate money, and he was harshly criticized for it, but it revealed his true goal: not simply to complete a building but to generate a people capable of carrying it forward over time.

The celebration as the fulfillment of work

Even during the darkest period of the crisis, large parties were held on the construction site, which Gaudí personally and meticulously oversaw and organized. This choice reveals much about his relationship with time: He never submitted to the urgencies of the moment, and precisely because he didn’t set deadlines for the completion of his work he was able to put life before productivity. For him, celebrations didn’t interrupt work but were its fulfillment; in celebrations, work received generosity, connection, and communion, in turn opening the doors to creativity.

Faith that comes from a lifetime

At 31, appointed to lead the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí realized he needed to delve deeper into the religious and liturgical themes underlying the project. He quickly understood that faith is not born from an idea but from a life lived. Thus he began to participate daily in Mass, in charitable works for the poor, in processions and fasts, sometimes reaching an intensity that threatened his own health. He began to view the Sagrada Familia as a providential project, convinced that Providence itself was guiding his journey of faith. By building the work, in a certain sense he was also building himself.

He died poor among the poor, as he had always wanted

Gaudí lived a poor life and dressed in worn clothes, so much so that he was often mistaken for a beggar. This was also the case at his death. On the evening of June 7, 1926, he was walking, as he did every day, to the Oratory of San Felipe Neri. A few days later, he would have turned 74. As Chiara Curti writes, “His collaborators loved to portray him in his daily life. In one of these vignettes, they show him walking down the street, immersed in the newspaper held open before his eyes.” Around six in the afternoon, he was hit by a tram while trying to dodge another approaching from the opposite direction.

Bystanders took him to the Hospital of the Holy Cross, the hospital for the destitute; they didn’t recognize him. Curti continues, “They placed him in the community room, in bed number 19, the number of Saint Joseph. This fact, in retrospect, was interpreted as a sign of Providence, along with the fact that Gaudí’s workers had often heard him say that he would have liked to die right there, in the hospital nicknamed ‘the poor.'” Only later was he recognized, and a funeral was organized for him, attended by a huge crowd lining the streets of Barcelona: a solemn tribute, of great popular gratitude, even if it contradicted what he himself had established in his will, where “he clearly established that he, Gaudí, wanted neither wreaths of flowers, nor musical bands, nor guards in gala uniform to accompany the coffin: only the normal service uniform.”

Every stone speaks of life and mystery

For this reason, the Sagrada Familia cannot be read simply as a work of architecture. It is, first and foremost, a sacred narrative, in which every stone points to a greater mystery. Without constant contemplation of the mysteries of nature experienced through the eyes of faith, neither the Nativity façade nor any other part of the Temple would have been conceived as they were, nor would they continue to move, even today, those who enter it for the first time — as happened to me, 15 years ago, before those stained-glass windows that seemed to transform a church into a forest of light.

Conclusion

What I’ve written are just a few quick brushstrokes from a delightful reading of Chiara Curti’s book, which, through a thousand historical events, presents the figure of Gaudí in an original way. Much more could be said, but I’ll leave it to the reader of this blog to discover it for themselves. However, I’d like to close this article on the life and works of the genius of sacred architecture — not surprisingly nicknamed “God’s architect” — Antoni Gaudí, with the words of one of his most faithful disciples, Josep Francesc Ràfols. These words reveal the definitive key to understanding his master’s work: “Gaudí, considered outside the faith, will always remain misunderstood. Perhaps there will be an aspect of his work that the non-believer will love, but they will never love its synthesis.”