The accident in which Antoni Gaudí was struck by a tram on June 7, 1926, at the intersection of Bailèn and Gran Via streets, is well-known and forms part of the popular myth surrounding the brilliant architect, as does the fact that those who initially came to his aid thought he was a beggar. His simplicity and austerity were thus reinforced. Three days later, Gaudí died at the Hospital de la Santa Creu, the hospital for the poor, where he had been taken because of his appearance and where he chose to remain. So far, so well known.

How many old photo albums lying around houses hold pictures taken on rooftops? Grandparents or parents would climb up there with those cameras that had limited technology (they were called "portrait machines"), searching for the light that was lacking in the apartment so the photo wouldn't come out dark, and a simple background that the street couldn't provide. I suppose they must have looked for their own horizon reference point in each location. In Barcelona, ​​it was clear: the Sagrada Família, with those first four bare towers of the Nativity façade on Sardenya Street, which were the image of the city for almost forty years. The image was so fixed that for many Barcelonans, those four spires were enough.

Antoni Gaudí dedicated himself exclusively to the Sagrada Família for the last twelve years of his life. By then, he had already established himself as a brilliant architect, and the Sagrada Família is, moreover, an exceptional building. However, Gaudí liked to know what the humblest people thought of his work. When he finished the Bernabé Tower, Gaudí asked the clockmaker who wound the temple's clocks what he thought of it. When the man replied that it was "incredible," Gaudí was overjoyed and spent the entire day repeating to everyone that the man had said the tower was wonderful. This was explained by Jordi Faulí, the architect in charge and coordinator of the temple's construction, and Chiara Curti, an architect and Gaudí scholar, who this Sunday led the commemoration of the centenary of the inauguration of the Bernabé Tower, the only one Gaudí saw completed. “What Gaudí did was teach us a method, that is, to build in complete parts, to awaken people’s capacity for wonder,” Curti explains. “In the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí began with the small chapel in the crypt and then finished the crypt. He continued with the apse, and when that was finished, he built another one.” The Tower of Barnabas is the easternmost, and it is no coincidence that it was the first one he finished. “Saint Barnabas is the last of the apostles. In fact, he didn’t even know Jesus, and, in a way, he is the most like us, because we too believe without having known. This gesture meant highlighting the contemporaneity of this apostle.”

The Sagrada Família is finalizing the work to complete what will be the icing on the cake of the events commemorating the centenary of Antoni Gaudí's death. Although it won't be open to visitors until later, the viewing cross that will crown the Sagrada Família's tallest tower will be ready in June 2026, coinciding with the anniversary of the death of the architect who designed the basilica. This figure, 17 meters high, 13.5 meters wide, and weighing 100 tons, will bring the tower of Jesus Christ to a height of 172.5 meters (it currently measures about 155 meters) and make the Sagrada Família the tallest religious building in Europe. It will be one of the milestones of a temple that still faces, however, the challenge of the staircase. An issue that the construction board acknowledged this Thursday will end up in court.

At the beginning of May, the world premiere of Symphony of the Sagrada Familia, a piece in three movements by Richard Blackford (London, 1954), which is inspired by the forms and spirituality conveyed by Gaudí's temple and, specifically, by its three façades: Nativity, Passion, and Glory. Blackford, who lives between Mallorca and the British capital, has a very long career that took a sudden turn in 2014: he consolidated the career of a contemporary composer who you only have to listen to to realize that he is and sounds, also, like a classic. The proof, in addition to the Gaudí symphony, which is accompanied by a film ad hoc, could be Pietan either Voices of Exile, a composition that resonates especially these days, for sadly obvious reasons.