Barcelona is a living city, its culture and cuisine are always evolving: a new museum to visit, that exhibition everyone is talking about, new restaurants with cutting-edge proposals, nightclubs and cocktail bars where you can dance until dawn, in addition to great classics that can always be revisited because they speak of the history of an incredible city.
We begin this journey at the starting point of any visit, the Sagrada Família, the most ambitious life project of architect Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926). Although Barcelona traces back to year 1 BCE when the Romans named it Barcino, the city reached its peak of urban and economic splendor during the 19th and 20th centuries with the arrival of Modernisme as an architectural philosophy, the Industrial Revolution, and the Renaixença, a Catalan literary movement. It is in this moment of creation, which would be dimmed by the Spanish Civil War and World War II, where Antoni Gaudí shines especially, one of the most universal figures in Catalan culture and international architecture, and who dedicated more than 40 years to the Sagrada Família temple project, which, by the way, is about to reach its culmination.
Once he earned the title of architect in 1878, he began to work on smaller projects and soon became one of the most sought-after architects. In addition to the Sagrada Família, the most important work of his life, Antoni Gaudí left in Barcelona other distinctive works (and the most visited in the city), such as the Park Güell, the Casa Vicens, the Casa Batlló, the Casa Milà or La Pedrera, the Casa Calvet, the Torre Bellesguard or the Colegio de las Teresianas, in addition to the pavilions of the Güell estate. On the other hand, Gaudí is also the architect of other works in Catalonia, such as the nave of the Cooperativa Obrera Mataronense (Mataró) or the crypt of Colònia Güell (Santa Coloma de Cervelló) and in Spain, such as El Capricho (Comillas, Cantabria) or the episcopal palace of Astorga and the Casa Botines (Castilla y León).
Gaudí was commissioned to build the Sagrada Família when he was only 31, and the last 12 years of his life he lived completely devoted to his great vocation: serving God through architecture. A guided tour of the Basilica of the Sagrada Família is therefore obligatory, which after 140 years of construction is beginning to see its final stage. The builders hope that it will be possible in 10 years; as of 2026, we could witness the installation of the Torre de Jesús, the tallest of all, crowning the church as the tallest in the world.
