Today I toured the inside of Sagrada Familia, which is officially named the Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, and is the huge unfinished church in Barcelona. The Roman Catholic church was designed by the famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. One of my first days in Barcelona, my program took a tour and visited the outside of the Sagrada Familia. Since then, I have been anticipating going inside and seeing the beautiful church and all it's glory.
My favorite aspect of the Sagrada Familia's inside is that it's designed to represent a forest, and is inspired by nature overall. The columns throughout the interior of the church are shaped like tree trunks, and are created out of different materials to represent different types of trees. On either side there are beautiful tall stained glass windows. On one side they are warm tones of color, representing where the sun rises. On the other side the stained glass has cool colors, representing where the sun sets. The inside of the cathedral also has great religious symbolic significance, because it is based on the Gospels and the book of the Apocalypse.
It's been 135 years of construction for the Sagrada Familia and they are now around 70% complete. They are hoping that the entire design will be complete by 2026. Antoni Gaudi sadly passed away long before the Sagrada Familia could be completed. However, I learned on the tour that he spent the last years of his life living inside the cathedral while he worked on it. He also left design plans behind so that the incredible building could be completed by other architects after him, and so that his legacy would be completed. A quote I wrote down during my tour that I think is really fundamental to this architectural masterpiece is, "it is the spirit of the work that must always be preserved".