MARÍA GÓMEZ BRAVO | Tungsteno

At eleven o’clock on the morning of February 20, 2026, a crane hoisted into place the final arm of the cross that crowns the Tower of Jesus Christ at the Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. With that, a major chapter in the basilica’s 144-year construction history reached its culmination. With the installation of the steel, glass, and ceramic structure, the Roman Catholic basilica attained the 172.5-meter height envisioned by Antoni Gaudí and became the tallest church in the world. The solemn blessing and inauguration ceremony, presided over by Pope Leo XIV on June 10 as part of the events commemorating the centennial of the architect’s death, underscored the tower’s symbolic significance.

Yet the completion of the tower represents more than just an architectural record. It is one of the most complex exercises in heritage continuity in contemporary architecture: completing a project conceived in the 19th century using tools, materials, and construction systems that its creator could never have imagined.

The basilica’s changing silhouette also marks the beginning of a new chapter for a building that continues to face questions that engineering alone cannot answer.

The installation of the final arm of the cross that crowns the Tower of Jesus Christ marked the culmination of a 144-year construction process. Credit: Fundació Junta Constructora del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família / Pep Daudé

A Mountain as a Limit

When Gaudí took over the project in 1883, he transformed a conventional Neo-Gothic church into a complex architectural organism in which every element responded to a geometric, natural, and symbolic order. The Tower of Jesus Christ was not simply the tallest of the 18 planned towers—it was the axis around which all the others were arranged.

The architect did not design a building composed of independent parts, but rather a system in which form arises from complex mathematical and structural relationships. Surrounded by the towers of the Evangelists and that of the Virgin Mary, the central position of the Tower of Jesus reflects a spatial and theological hierarchy in which height expresses the order of the whole. Its location also strengthens the building’s visual relationship with two defining features of the Barcelona landscape: Montjuïc and the Mediterranean.

The Tower of Jesus Christ acts as a connector between Montjuïc and the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Fundació Junta Constructora del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família / Pep Daudé

This decision reveals much about Gaudí’s conception of architecture. The Catalan architect specified that the structure should reach 172.5 meters in height, deliberately placing the tower just below the 173-meter summit of Montjuïc in order to integrate the basilica with the city’s natural skyline rather than compete with it.

Between Legacy and Interpretation

Gaudí conceived the Sagrada Família as an intergenerational project. He understood that the technical complexity of his vision, combined with its reliance on private donations, made it impossible for him to see it completed. As architect Joan Bergós, one of his closest collaborators, later recalled, Gaudí often said: “What I cannot do, others will continue.”

When he died after being struck by a tram in Barcelona in June 1926, the Tower of Jesus Christ remained more idea than reality. Gaudí had defined its role within the overall composition, its general proportions, and many of its geometric principles, but he never lived to see its construction begin. The destruction of many of the models and documents stored in the Sagrada Família workshop during the Spanish Civil War dealt the project a further blow. The surviving legacy had to be pieced together and interpreted to meet the challenge of completing the building’s unbuilt sections, including the great central tower.

The Tower of Jesus Christ has become one of the finest examples of collaboration between heritage and innovation. Credit: Basilica of the Sagrada Familia.

When construction began, many of the shapes envisioned by Gaudí were simply impossible to build. A century later, computers made it possible to visualize much of that geometry. Australian architect and researcher Mark Burry, one of the foremost academic authorities on the basilica, has played a key role in this process. His work has helped translate many of Gaudí’s designs into the digital realm using advanced modeling techniques and parametric design tools.

The construction of the Tower of Jesus Christ demonstrates the extent to which digital tools have transformed the way we preserve and restore historic heritage. Many of its components were manufactured off-site and later assembled using industrialized construction methods. Among the innovations employed, the so-called “post-tensioned stone” stands out, a system that combines stone and steel to increase structural strength without altering the building’s exterior appearance.

The crowning element of the tower—a four-armed cross standing over 15 meters tall—is itself the product of this convergence between Gaudí’s vision and contemporary engineering. The challenge was not merely to place a religious symbol atop the tower. Engineers had to design an element capable of withstanding powerful winds, temperature fluctuations, solar radiation, and decades of exposure to the elements.

The cross that crowns the Sagrada Família’s newest tower is made of steel, glass, and ceramic, engineered to endure the harshest weather conditions. Credit: Basilica of the Sagrada Família

According to information published by the basilica, Gaudí had specified in the Àlbums del Temple that the cross should shine during the day and glow at night. Based on this idea, the resulting solution combines glass, white enameled ceramic, and contemporary structural systems. For Jordi Faulí, the basilica’s architectural director, the incorporation of new technologies has not disrupted the continuity of the project: “If Gaudí were to see the Sagrada Família today, he would recognize it as his own.”

New Challenges

For decades, the unfinished image of the basilica served as both an icon of Barcelona and a metaphor for Gaudí’s nonconformist spirit. Although the Tower of Jesus Christ is now complete on the exterior, the Sagrada Família remains under construction. Work continues on interior spaces and various elements of the complex. Yet the greatest challenge still ahead has a name: the Glory Façade.

Its construction raises a question that extends beyond architecture itself: how do you complete a historic work when the city for which it was designed no longer exists? Conceived by Gaudí as the basilica’s main entrance, this façade was intended to be preceded by a monumental staircase opening onto Mallorca Street, according to the original sketches. Such an intervention would alter the current urban fabric and affect residential buildings that have stood there for decades.

Gaudí envisioned the Glory Façade as the main entrance to the basilica, which has significant implications for the urban environment surrounding the Sagrada Família. Credit: LLUIS GENE / AFP via Getty Images.

The dilemma now facing public authorities and those responsible for the basilica is no longer purely technical. On the one hand, there is the historical question: international organizations such as ICOMOS and UNESCO recognize only the Crypt and the Nativity Façade as part of the Works of Antoni Gaudí, since these are the areas that retain direct material authenticity from the architect’s lifetime. On the other hand, there is the social impact on a city under intense pressure from tourism and urban development. The Sagrada Família, which receives nearly 4.9 million visitors annually and operates with self-financed revenues that exceeded €134.5 million in 2025, functions as a major economic and urban infrastructure.

The cross that now crowns the Tower of Jesus Christ marks the end of one of the most complex chapters in the history of the Sagrada Família. But it also signals the beginning of another. Engineering has succeeded in reaching the height envisioned by Gaudí. The challenge now is to complete his vision in a Barcelona that has changed as profoundly as the basilica itself.

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