There is one name you need to know before you visit Barcelona: Antoni Gaudí. Visionary, genius, artist — but above all, an architect who was so far ahead of his time that the city is still catching up with him. His fingerprints are all over Barcelona, but nothing comes close to his magnum opus: the Sagrada Família.
Construction began in 1882 under the original architect, Francisco de Paula del Villar. Gaudí took over just a year later, in 1883, and dedicated the next 43 years of his life to the project. He knew he would never see it finished — and he was right. He died in 1926 with the church still far from complete.
February 2026 marked exactly 100 years since Gaudí's death — and the moment the Sagrada Família officially became the tallest church in the world, standing at 172 metres. Deliberately one metre shorter than Montjuïc mountain, which peaks at 173 metres. Gaudí believed no work of man should surpass the work of nature.
Walk around the outside and you're already getting a history lesson. There are two completed facades to admire, and a third still underway.
