Is the Sagrada Família finished?
Almost. Its tallest spire, the Tower of Jesus Christ, was blessed by Pope Leo XIV on June 10, 2026, exactly 100 years after Gaudí’s death. The Glory facade and a few other pieces are still being built, with full completion expected in the next decade.
- Construction began: 1882, which makes it 144 years and counting.
- Height: the central tower reaches 172.5 meters, and about 176 meters with its cross. That makes it the tallest church in the world.
- What it costs to build: there has never been a single total budget. In 2025 the basilica took in €134.5 million, all from tickets and private donations, and put 51.7% of it (roughly €70 million) into construction.
- Public money: none. It is paid for by its 4.9 million yearly visitors and donors.
On June 10, 2026, Barcelona’s skyline reached the shape Gaudí drew for it. The Sagrada Família blessed its central Tower of Jesus Christ, 144 years after the first stone was laid and 100 years to the day after Gaudí died. Around 120,000 people filled the streets outside.
It’s a story unlike anything else in architecture: one man’s vision so intricate and ambitious that it outlasted him by a century, carried forward by thousands of builders across generations, funded entirely by the people who came to watch it rise. The last big spire is up. A few chapters are still being written.
Gaudí’s Vision: A Church Unlike Anything Before It
Construction began in 1882 under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. A year later, a 31-year-old Antoni Gaudí took over, and changed everything.
Gaudí fused Gothic architecture with his own organic, nature-driven sensibility to create something the world had never seen. Spiraling towers, columns that branch like trees toward the ceiling, facades covered in sculptural detail, windows that flood the interior with colored light. The design was so intricate, so layered with intention, that Gaudí knew it couldn’t be finished in his lifetime. He didn’t mind. “My client is not in a hurry,” he reportedly said. He meant God.
144 Years of Construction: What Took So Long?
Gaudí died in 1926, struck by a tram in Barcelona, with only about a quarter of the church complete. He had spent his final years living on site, absorbed entirely by the project.
What followed was a century of setbacks. The Spanish Civil War halted construction in 1936, and anarchists burned Gaudí’s workshop, destroying many of his original models and drawings. Builders spent years reconstructing designs from fragments and photographs. Money shaped the pace throughout. The Sagrada Família has never accepted public funding, so it can only build as fast as tickets and donations allow.
How much did the Sagrada Família cost to build?
Nobody can give you one honest number, because it was never built on a single budget. It has been paid for year by year for 144 years, in pesetas and then euros, mostly by visitors. The recent figures are the clearest picture. According to the basilica’s own 2025 report, it received 4,877,567 visitors and €134.5 million in income, all from private sources, and 51.7% of that went to construction. That is roughly €70 million of stone, glass and labor in a single year.
Modern technology finally turned the tide. Digital modeling and precision stone-cutting made it possible to realize Gaudí’s most complex forms faster than any previous generation could have managed.
The Architecture: Spires, Light, and a Forest of Stone
The Sagrada Família is built around three grand facades, the Nativity, the Passion and the Glory, each telling a different part of the story of Christ. Eighteen spires crown the basilica in total. The central spire of Jesus Christ, at 172.5 meters, makes it the tallest church in the world.
The interior is unlike any other church. The columns branch organically toward the ceiling, creating the sense of standing inside a stone forest. Stained glass runs from cool blues and greens on one side to warm ambers and reds on the other, and the color shifts across the stone as the light changes through the day.
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June 2026: The Tallest Tower Is Blessed
The cross went onto the Tower of Jesus Christ in February 2026, and on June 10, the centenary of Gaudí’s death, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass and blessed the tower. Work isn’t over. Interior work inside the tower runs through 2027 and 2028, and the Glory facade, the grandest of the three, is expected to be finished in the next decade. Throughout all of it, the basilica has never accepted a single euro of public funding. Every stone was paid for by people who came to see it.
We visited in 2006, when it was still a long way from finished. We came away stunned by the forms, the color, the sense that something genuinely unlike anything else was being built. Seeing the tallest tower reach the sky feels like the end of a very long, very beautiful sentence, with a short postscript still to come.
More on the tower: how the Sagrada Família became the tallest church in the world →
Images courtesy of the Sagrada Familia Foundation.
