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1 / 16 Light on the floor You are inside, by the main door. Watch the floor: as the sun moves, blue light from the Nativity side and orange light from the Passion side slide across the stone. Look up to see the columns branch.
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Guide Parts Controls
01 Light on the floor You are inside, by the main door. Watch the floor: as the sun moves, blue light from the Nativity side and orange light from the Passion side slide across the stone. Look up to see the columns branch.
02 A forest of columns The columns lean and split into branches near the top, like trees, and the branches sink into the vaults. Gaudí wanted the inside to feel like a forest. The side vaults are 30 m up, the central ones 45 m.
03 Under the crossing Four red porphyry columns, 24 m to their knots, carry the crossing vault 60 m up. Above it stands the tower of Jesus Christ. Light comes through hyperboloid skylights.
04 Evening light In the afternoon the sun is in the west, behind the Passion side, and the light on the floor turns red and orange. In the morning it was blue. Try the time slider and the season chips.
05 How the weight comes down The red lines follow the load from the vaults down the branches and the columns into the ground. The walls carry no vault, so they can be mostly glass. The apse vault is 75 m high.
06 The Nativity façade The façade Gaudí saw built: three portals, stalactites, a green cypress with white doves, and four bell towers. Two columns stand on a sea turtle and a tortoise. Can you find them?
07 Across the pond From Plaça de Gaudí the Nativity façade stands over the water, with the six central towers behind it. The tallest, Jesus Christ, is 172.5 m.
08 The Passion façade Leaning columns like bones, a pediment on eighteen more columns, and Subirachs’ angular figures. Look for the magic square whose sums are 33, and the Evangelist with Gaudí’s face.
09 1926 The year Gaudí died. The crypt, the apse façade and the Nativity façade stand, with one finished bell tower, Saint Barnabas. The naves do not exist yet.
10 1936 In July 1936 the workshop was set on fire: plans and photographs burned and the plaster models were smashed. What was saved, and what had been published, kept the work going.
11 The hanging model Strings and sachets hanging from a board: a reproduction of the model Gaudí made for the church of Colònia Güell. Gravity pulls each string into the shape that carries its load by tension.
12 Turned over Turn the model over and every string that pulled now pushes: the strings become columns and arches that carry the same loads by compression. Try it yourself in the hanging-chain lab.
13 The crypt The first part of the Temple, begun in 1882 to Villar’s neo-Gothic design, 10 m below ground. Gaudí is buried here, in the Chapel of Our Lady of Carmel.
14 At 85 m On the bridges between the central towers. Mary’s tower (138 m) ends in a lit star; above you the tower of Jesus Christ rises to its cross. The towers are bundles of paraboloids.
15 Taller than Ulm The ghost is Ulm Minster’s tower, 161.53 m, the tallest church tower until 30 October 2025. The block of flats beside it counts 3 m storeys up to 172.5 m.
16 As planned The last step of the slider shows the Glory façade with its sixteen lanterns and four more bell towers. It has no date: the towers were the 2026 milestone, the main façade comes later.
Nave from the main door The view down the nave with the light moving on the floor. Among the columns Tree columns that branch under the vaults. The crossing Four porphyry columns and the vault 60 m up. The apse and altar The porphyry altar and the 75 m vault. Nativity façade Three portals, turtles, the cypress, four bell towers. Across the pond The Nativity façade over the water of Plaça de Gaudí. Passion façade Bone-like columns, the magic square, the cross. Glory site The main façade, still to be built. Museum The hanging model and the plaster models. Crypt The first part built, and Gaudí’s tomb. Bridges at 85 m Between the central towers. Choir gallery The singers’ gallery at 15 m. The Schools The wavy brick roof of 1909. Tower of Jesus Christ 172.5 m with its cross. Tower of the Virgin Mary 138 m, with the lit star. Western sacristy Twelve paraboloids, the model for the central towers. Magic square Every line adds up to 33. Sea turtle Under a Nativity column. Hanging model Turn it over to see a church. Gaudí’s tomb In the Chapel of Our Lady of Carmel.
