13 more years to finish Gaudi’s Barcelona cathedral

It will have taken 144 years to construct, but Barcelona’s top tourist attraction, La Sagrada Familia cathedral, will finally be completed by 2026, the architect in charge of the eccentric masterpiece has promised.

Confident that work will be completed in time for the centenary of the death of Antoni Gaudi, a computer generated 3D video depicting how the final landmark will look has been released by the Sagrada Familia Foundation.

Some 65 per cent of the work has been completed since the first stone was laid by Gaudi in 1882. With new masonry techniques speeding up the work, the architect says the final spires and main facade will be finished within 13 years. “If we continue at the pace we are now, we will make it,” said chief architect Jordi Fauli.

The basilica, which was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2010, attracts three million tourists a year. Entrance fees pay for most of the cost of construction.

Barcelona’s second cathedral has a long history of problems. Gaudi was so impoverished that he was taken for a tramp when he died at age 74 in 1926, after being run over by a city tram. His body was not identified for several days.

The building will eventually have 18 spires decorated with colourful baubles, including a huge central spire over the basilica’s dome which will reach 158.5 metres and have a lift to carry tourists to the top.

Gaudi, referred to as “God’s architect” and the subject of a petition for beatification, expected his “cathedral of the poor” to take two centuries to build.

“My client is in no hurry,” he famously said, referring to God.