CWT Journal – August 27, 2026 / Segrada Familia, Barcelona

We woke up early by Spanish standards for our 11:15 tour of the Sagrada Família—and it was absolutely the coolest cathedral we've ever seen. It somehow manages to be massive and sacred while also feeling whimsical, with biblical stories mixed everywhere with trees, flowers, animals, fruit, light, and other references to nature. Walking inside feels less like entering a traditional cathedral and more like stepping into a gigantic stone forest.

Antoni Gaudí took over the project in 1883 and devoted 43 years of his life to it, eventually working on nothing else. Amazingly, when he died in 1926, only a relatively small portion of the enormous church had actually been built. The project has never relied on government or Church funding—it has been financed by private donations and, today, largely by visitors.

Gaudí's death was almost as extraordinary as his life. On June 7, 1926, while walking to church, he was struck by a tram. By then he lived very austerely and wasn't immediately recognized as Barcelona's famous architect, so he was taken to the old charity hospital rather than the city's newer hospital. He died three days later and was eventually buried inside the Sagrada Família itself.

Then came another disaster. During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, revolutionaries vandalized the basilica and destroyed Gaudí's workshop, burning plans and photographs and smashing many of his intricate plaster models. His successors painstakingly reconstructed the surviving fragments and used them to continue building his vision.

Perhaps the coolest part was learning how Gaudí borrowed engineering from nature itself. Instead of relying on conventional Gothic supports, he developed branching, tree-like columns and complex geometric arches and vaults that efficiently distribute the tremendous weight above them. Looking upward, the columns literally seem to branch into a stone canopy overhead.

More than a century after construction began, Gaudí's masterpiece is still being built around the people visiting it.

Maybe that is part of what makes the Sagrada Família so remarkable: we weren't just visiting history—we were visiting history still under construction.