BARCELONA, Spain — On June 10, 1926, Antoni Gaudí, the visionary architect responsible for the spectacular and still unfinished Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, died after being run over by a tram. A century later, one of the architects in charge of completing the work says he is more afraid of the bicycle couriers who travel around the city.
“They are more frightening,” said Mauricio Cortés, an architect who worked on the recently completed central tower of the basilica, blessed by Pope Leo XIV this Wednesday in Barcelona.
Leo, the third pontiff to visit the church, inaugurated the tower and, seated on a white throne mounted outside the temple, watched a show of lights and fireworks that drew gasps from the audience of authorities and religious gathered inside the basilica. The pope also paid tribute to Gaudí, a practicing Catholic known as “the architect of God”, whose face was drawn in the sky by fireworks choreographed next to the tower and the illuminated cross.
The pontiff’s presence temporarily transformed the church and surrounding neighborhoods into the center of attention of the Catholic world. During the mass celebrated on Wednesday night, Leão compared the slow construction of the Sagrada Família to life itself.
“This church is a single building made of many stones,” he said. “A house that grows continuously over the years following a single plan.”
But when the pope leaves, the Sagrada Familia and the streets around it will once again become the scene of much more mundane concerns about the soul of Barcelona. Residents complain about a congested city — not just because of bicycle delivery men, but also because of the excess of tourists, who occupy apartments and put pressure on a real estate market that is already scarce for those born and raised there.
Continues after advertising
The Sagrada Familia is at the center of these tensions. While it attracts visitors who boost the local economy, it is also seen as one of the factors driving up housing prices and threatening to displace residents whose homes could be demolished to allow for the basilica’s expansion.
This places the church at the intersection of national political disputes, questions of regional identity, and local anxieties related to overtourism, homelessness, and forced displacement.
“The situation here is horrible,” said Salvador Barroso, representative of the Association of Those Affected by the Sagrada Família, who lives in a building opposite the church and which could be demolished if the expansion progresses.
Continues after advertising
According to him, many residents planned to hang black ribbons from their windows during the papal visit in protest against what they consider an injustice.
“I don’t see how a good Christian could accept that,” he said.
The foundation that manages the Sagrada Família argues that Gaudí envisaged a wide passage connecting the still unfinished Fachada da Glória — the temple’s future main entrance — to the avenue located a few meters below. To do this, entire blocks could be removed, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of families.
Continues after advertising
Esteve Camps, president of the foundation’s construction council, stated that the church “will not back down from this plan” and highlighted that the work follows Gaudí’s original project “to the letter”.
Residents, however, dispute this version. They argue that there is no evidence that Gaudí planned the proposed staircase, especially since many of the architect’s original drawings and models were destroyed by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War.
The final decision will be made by Barcelona City Hall, which has already informed that the basilica’s foundation will have to bear the costs of any relocations.
Continues after advertising
More broadly, city officials promote the Sagrada Familia as a global destination comparable to Europe’s Taj Mahal.
For Barroso and his neighbors, however, the more than 5 million annual visitors — in addition to the street artists and souvenir shops that accompany them — have already profoundly transformed the neighborhood.
On the eve of the papal visit, a building in front of it displayed a poster showing buildings being crushed by a boot in the shape of the Holy Family.
A resident who bought her apartment there in 1980 remembers that, at that time, there were few workers working in the church and it was only possible to hear the sound of a single hammer hitting the stone. Since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, she says, the basilica has become an increasingly noisy neighbor.
Others believe she has also become more aggressive.
“They could expel us because of the construction of the Sagrada Familia,” said Pedro Deane, a 39-year-old Argentine chef who lives on rent in one of the threatened buildings.
Another resident, Daria Lapina, a 32-year-old Moscow-born English teacher, said she felt sorry for the families who might be removed.
“There is already a housing crisis here, and are hundreds of families still going to be displaced?” he asked. “How is this going to work?”
There are no signs that the works are nearing completion. According to architect Mauricio Cortés, the towers above the main façade could still take another decade to be completed.
He himself has been working on the project for 20 years — half the time that Gaudí dedicated to the work.
“I’m halfway there,” he joked.
The Sagrada Familia has been under construction for 144 years and has become “a church that never ends”, according to the Archbishop of Tarragona, Joan Planellas.
It also became a permanent stage for Spanish politics. During the Civil War, work slowed down and the church was vandalized by anti-clerical groups.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez attended the mass alongside his wife, although he is a declared atheist and often keeps his distance from the Catholic Church.
Conservative opponents have accused him of trying to improve his political image through proximity to the popular pontiff at a time when government allies are facing corruption scandals.
Even with the presence of a king, a pope and the prime minister, it was the basilica itself that stole the show.
Leo celebrated mass surrounded by exuberant facades, reminiscent of a coral reef sculpted with biblical figures, angelic musicians, stone roses and Roman soldiers. Inside, the colored light from the stained glass windows projects prisms onto columns that resemble trees whose branches transform into arches under a geometric canopy.
“This event is more than the opening of a tower,” said Planellas. “It is a tribute to an entire construction designed to elevate the human spirit.”
On the other side of the street, however, Barroso was still hoping that the pope, known for his criticism of economic inequalities, had noticed the black ribbons hanging in the windows and wondered:
“What is this all about?”
This article was originally published by The New York Times.
