The team completing Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia have said the Barcelona basilica will be fully constructed in 2026 – 144 years after the first stone was laid.
Esteve Camps, chief of the organisation building it, said they have the money and material to finish the masterwork in two years’ time, which will be a century after the architect’s death.
The cathedral welcomes millions of visitors every year and has gradually been constructed since 1882 – the intricacies of the design plus setbacks have contributed to the completion taking a famously long time.
Gaudi’s death in 1926 meant that work was hindered, and again by the the Spanish Civil War and the destruction of master plans, models, and designs.
More recently, the construction was slowed down by the onset of Covid-19.
Mr Camps has said that the 2026 date will see the completion of the church’s body work and central tower.
However, decorative work and construction of a central stairwell will continue beyond that with an expected end date of 2034. There has been some dispute over the nature of the stairwell, which was planned not by Gaudi himself but by his disciples.
Mr Camps 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.”
The building is part of a Unesco World Heritage Site and was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, who named it a basilica.
A figure of Jesus will sit at the top of the central tower, which will make the Sagrada Familia the world’s tallest church at 172.5 metres. That makes it 11 metres taller than the current record-holder, Ulm Minster, which is 161.5 metres (530ft) at its highest point.
