Sagrada Família

The idea for the expiatory church originated in 1866 with bookseller Josep Maria Bocabella, founder of the Spiritual Association of Devotees of Saint Joseph. Ground was broken on Saint Joseph's Day, March 19, 1882, under original diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar, who planned a conventional Neo-Gothic church. Following disagreements over materials and budget, Villar resigned in 1883, and 31-year-old Antoni Gaudí took over the project, radically reinventing the design into his visionary organic masterpiece. Gaudí devoted over 43 years of his life to the basilica, residing exclusively in his workshop on-site during his final years until his tragic death in June 1926 after being struck by a tram. During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, anarchists broke into the workshop, destroying Gaudí's original blueprints, notes, and plaster scale models. Subsequent generations of architects, notably Francesc Quintana, Isidre Puig Boada, and Jordi Bonet, painstakingly reconstructed the models from plaster fragments and applied cutting-edge 3D parametric computer modelling to continue construction faithfully following Gaudí's geometry. In November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the basilica as a minor basilica.