The Sagrada Família is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although the church is incomplete, it finds a place in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gaudí devoted his last years to the project and at the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. The delay in the construction of the project owes to its dependence on private donations and also to the interruption by the Spanish Civil War. Parts of the unfinished basilica and Gaudí’s models and workshop were destroyed during the war by Catalan anarchists.

Art Critic Rainer Zerbst has described Sagrada Familia as “it is probably impossible to find a church building anything like it in the entire history of art” and Paul Goldberger called it ‘the most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages’.

The style of la Sagrada Familia is variously likened to Spanish Late Gothic, Catalan Modernism and to Art Nouveau or Catalan Noucentisme. Sagrada Familia is complex in design including double aisles, an ambulatory with a chevet of seven apsidal chapels, a multitude of towers and three portals, each widely different in structure as well as ornament.

The Church will have three grand façades: the Nativity façade to the East, the Passion façade to the West, and the Glory façade to the South (yet to be completed). The Passion façade is especially striking for its spare, gaunt, tormented characters, including emaciated figures of Christ being scourged at the pillar; and Christ on the Cross.

The church plan is that of a Latin cross with five aisles. The central vault reaches sixty metres. The apse is capped by a hyperboloid vault reaching seventy-five metres. The columns of the interior are a unique Gaudí design. the ornamentation in the interior surfaces is comprehensive and rich, consisting in large part of abstract shapes which combine smooth curves and jagged points. Even detail-level work such as the iron railings for balconies and stairways are full of curvaceous elaboration.

Visitors can access the Nave, Crypt, Museum, Shop, and the Passion and Nativity towers. Access to the towers is possible only by lift and a walk up the remainder of the towers, over the bridge between the towers and descent via the opposite tower by spiral staircase.