Jordi Faulí: "The Sagrada Familia will be fully understood when it is finished"

BarcelonaJordi Faulí (Barcelona, 1959) joined the Sagrada Familia's technical office in 1990, when the temple was not yet covered. Three years later he was appointed assistant director architect. And in 2012 he became, succeeding Jordi Bonet, the seventh director architect since Antoni Gaudí. Among the milestones of his direction are the completion of the naves and the culmination of the Tower of the Virgin Mary and the Tower of Jesus.

As an architect, how has your relationship with the temple evolved during this time?

— With each passing time, I have gained more knowledge of Gaudí's project, of how to follow it and how to build it.

How did the opportunity to go work there arise?

— The director architect at that time, Jordi Bonet, proposed it to me, but I always explain the same thing because otherwise, we don't get the idea: at that time there were sixteen bricklayers on the construction site and four architects in the office. It was a very different situation from the current one.

Since then, how have these figures evolved?

— Now there are about 150, and in the office there are about 50. We not only have to think about the architects and the projects, but also about the construction, the production. And before the pandemic we were more.

Have you been able to fully recover pre-pandemic levels?

— We have quite similar activity to what we had before the pandemic, but not in the office. We reduced the office and now we also work with external offices.

Would you say that you have been responsible for a leap in scale in the construction of the Sagrada Familia?

— It wasn't assigned to me, it was my turn. The dynamics of the Sagrada Familia are always a consequence, basically, of resources, which come from donations and ticket sales.

Technically, has work changed much in these years?

— It has changed, but the concept has not changed, because the idea we always have is to faithfully follow Gaudí's project and build with quality. And that means being open to the technologies that can help us at any given moment.

Has there always been this openness to technological advancements?

— The pioneer was Jordi Bonet, who was the one who saw that computing had to help us and at the end of the eighties he opened the office to collaborate with other architects and universities. Then Jordi Bonet already produced the stone columns of the nave with numerical control, which was very simple at that time, but it was surely one of the first stone elements in the world, or the first, executed with computer mechanization. And then everything else followed, until now we build the towers and terminals with this new technique of tensioned stone.

So computing has been mostly a help.

— Yes, it's a help to study Gaudí's project and interpret it. For example, the windows of the naves that are in the models Gaudí left, we have built them with more accuracy than the model itself. The model is handmade and very well made, but there are certain inaccuracies that have to do with the execution itself. The fact of redrawing Gaudí's models with computer programs means that we have introduced the geometric formulas of the architectural elements and, therefore, their intersections are even more precise than the model itself. And another example of this is the computer topography of the work, which allows us to build with precision.

They work with parametric design tools.

— It's curious, because it's already Gaudí's idea. He didn't know these programs, but he did have an intuition in the sense of leaving the maximum amount of information for the future. Afterwards, he gave freedom, but obviously it's something that he leaves, it must be followed. And since he didn't know how long he would live, he made important dimension models of various elements that would serve to build those parts and as an example for others. For example, the sacristy dome, which is composed of a set of twelve parabolic grids that meet at the top, Gaudí left it in a model. And he also left the central towers drawn. Therefore, we have projected the central towers taking the sacristy model and changing the height of the top vertex. The tower of Jesus has twelve faces like the sacristy, and the vertex is 60 meters higher. The towers of the evangelists have eight faces, as Gaudí indicated in one of his texts. And that of the Virgin Mary, fourteen.

Have technological advancements had any impact on the interior of the towers?

— Yes. Thanks to technology, we have been able to make them different from how Gaudí could have made them: they will be visitable, they are free spaces inside the tower of Our Lady of Sorrows and that of Jesus. With the technique he had at his disposal, Gaudí had imagined that inside there would be some apartments, and current techniques have allowed us to leave the tower of Jesus and the tower of Our Lady of Sorrows without any interior elements and with spaces 60 meters high. Gaudí did not design these spaces, but they are a consequence of the exterior of the towers.

What has it meant for you to complete the tower of Jesus?

— The first thing you think is that, step by step, you are making Gaudí's project a reality. And then about the large number of people who have contributed their work to make it possible.

Within the fidelity to Gaudí's project, is there any room for interpretation? How is this fidelity approached?

— Always to the fullest, because Gaudí was a genius, we all know this, and we cannot waste any of the data from his project. And it is true that there are elements defined in detail because he left a model, others he drew and others he described. Gaudí planned for the future of the Sagrada Familia to use a series of geometric shapes in three dimensions, the large part generated by straight lines, as can be seen in the models he left, which were not small, they were at a scale of 1:25 and 1:10, i.e., larger. And in those models Gaudí also explained the system of combination between them. Therefore, when there is a very defined model by Gaudí, we obviously follow it to the letter, and in the elements that he did not draw, but said should be like others for which he had made a model, we follow the same technology.

Gaudí left everything defined, or is there any element that you have been able to create anew?

— Again, cap. He also defined the symbology of the entire temple. There is always a starting point from Gaudí: the same cross of the tower of Jesus; Gaudí made a model of a cross with two arms, and now we have made the central cross following the description he made of the cross and using the geometry he left in the model. And it is the same geometry as the columns of the nave.

The next major milestone will be the facade of Glory. The three pre-selected artists to create the decoration, Miquel Barceló, Cristina Iglesias, and Javier Marín, have already presented their proposals.

— Yes.

Could it be that the work was divided among the three of them?

— Must be seen. 

And could it be that the competition was left without a winner?

— It could also happen. But it is not entirely a competition, but a presentation of artistic proposals. The three artists have presented them and explained them. They have made a great presentation, very well documented. The artistic and theological commission have made their reports and all this has been presented to the board of trustees, who will look at it; there is no deadline for making a decision.

Miquel Barceló has said that making the facade of Glory is fifteen years of work.

— This has to be seen. We are talking about ten years, but the artistic part, I don't know.

The staircase of the Glory facade is, probably, the most controversial part, due to the conflict with the residents of the homes on Mallorca street. Could there be passage underneath?

— Yes, Gaudí raised the temple's plan by one meter so that the stairway has enough height to pass over the street. The stairway passes over with a clearance of five meters, and it creates a plaza in front of the facade above the street, and on the other side is the staircase. 

What surface would it occupy?

— I would say this is about 80 x 35 meters.

It has been made public that the agreement with the residents of the affected islands is very advanced.

— The project was already defined with the General Metropolitan Plan of 1976, which included a space of 60 meters in width in front of the temple, between Mallorca street and Diagonal as a green area. And the rest of the blocks, also affected, as affected housing.

Will this same project be the one to be executed?

— I don't know that [smiles].

What is your objective, then?

— What we are trying to do is make the scale that Gaudí proposed, which is the one he imagined and which corresponds to the dimensions of the building, possible. It's not just about scale, but also about two monuments: one is a water fountain that reaches 25 meters in height and the other, some fire teapots. These monuments create a kind of framing.

The continuation of the Sagrada Familia has been heavily criticized. It has been said that Gaudí has been betrayed.

— I think this is an argument that goes against what Gaudí himself wanted, who, when he was 60 years old, that is, when he was in full creative activity, decided to dedicate himself exclusively to the Sagrada Familia to build the Nativity facade and to project the maximum information for the future, "so that it is known what that man wanted to do". It is evident that he wanted the work to continue. But, on the other hand, the Sagrada Familia is a project of the people, of the populace. Therefore, it is the same people who, in very diverse ways, have been pushing the production of the Sagrada Familia. And I think this is a process that must be valued and that is unique in the world, and that is worth vindicating.

Other critics claim that the temple receives so much attention because it is continuously under construction and that they will never finish it so as not to lose it.

— Any cathedral, any great church like the Sagrada Familia, finished, will never be finished. Apart from restoration, there is always something to do. What Gaudí thinks, and what he explains to his disciples, we will understand perfectly when the Sagrada Familia is finished, also symbolically. The vocation of a building is to be finished. And secondly, it is that this work of a genius architect we will understand in a complete way, and those who come to see it will understand it, when it is finished.

I used to say that the Sagrada Familia is a project of the people. But at the same time it is a major tourist attraction. How do you combine this tourist character that the basilica has with the spiritual, with the social?

— They must coexist. The Sagrada Familia has been a place of worship since 2010, but the crypt has been since 1885. At the same time, it is a building with an architectural quality; therefore, people also come to enjoy and to know these architectural qualities that are also very linked to a symbolic content of expression of the Christian faith, and of life. The more the construction advances, the more present the liturgical aspect will be, and the less the architectural one, this happens all over the world. And, on the other hand, there are the aids to third sector entities that the Sagrada Familia gives through the social action fund.

The next visit of Pope Leo XIV within the Gaudí Year will mark a new milestone in the history of the temple.

— I believe that for Gaudí it would be a cause for great joy that the mass for the centenary of his death be presided over by the Holy Father.