Barcelona, Spain - La Sagrada Familia Nativity Facade

It's hard to take it all in.  It's even harder to describe and explain to someone. All that I could do was to take a multitude of photographs and bring them home to show you.

The short story: La Sagrada Familia is a basilica in Barcelona. It was the inspiration of a Catalan bookseller who had visited the Vatican.  The initial architect was Francisco de Paula del Villar. His plan, in 1882, was for this to be a Gothic revival church of "standard form".  Antoni Gaudi assumed responsibility for its design in 1883 and he changed the design radically.  There has been an extremely long construction period, and the building was considered 15-25 percent complete when Gaudi died in 1926.  Construction is anticipated to be complete in 2026.

See the wikipedia link to read more details.  The details that I talk about here are from the wikipedia article if noted. I'm not going to retype it all so I highly recommend that you read the details as it is fascinating.  CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Computer-aided design has been used to accelerate the construction.  Current technology allows the stone to be shaped off-site by a CNC milling machine as opposed to being carved by hand. (Yea!)

This post will be in three sections: Nativity Facade, Interior, and Passion Facade.  The third facade, the Glory facade is yet to be completed..so the tour didn't go there and I have no photos!

The view from the bus window.

Very exciting, but the drama was just beginning.

There are so many details in this facade.  I am very happy that I took photos so that I could see the details.  As I stood in front of the building I just let out a single "Wow".  There is so much to see.

The scenes are dedicated to the birth of Jesus.  This side faces North.

 Gaudi wanted every statue and figure to be painted.

Then to the side, I saw different architecture with a pile of...fruit? on top.

I could see these from the Nativity Facade, but they are part of the Passion Facade.

A nice place to buy some snacks and sit for a while.  We didn't get a break but walked past this area to a gift shop. Love the shopping opportunities.

We continue to the interior of the building in the next post.