Post by Stefano Ferracini

A few days ago, looking at photos of Barcelona online, I noticed the massive cranes were gone. On June 10, 2026, the centenary of Gaudí’s death, the 172.5-meter Tower of Jesus Christ was inaugurated. The news calls it a milestone, but the reality feels like an ambiguous compromise. There is a strange rush to celebrate. The Sagrada Família has become a massive money machine, fueled by five million tourists paying steep ticket prices. Yet, by statute, this is an "expiatory temple," meant to be built solely from the alms of the faithful. Today, it’s a global attraction self-financed by mass tourism. You find more selfie sticks than prayers. I wonder what Gaudí would think—a man who spent his final years living like an ascetic inside the site, begging for money. Then there is the issue of authenticity. This "completion" feels like marketing. While the vertical structure is finished, the Glory facade—the main entrance—remains an empty shell. To build the monumental stairway outlined in the supposed plans, the Foundation needs to demolish two residential blocks on Carrer de Mallorca, evicting about three thousand people. Banners hang from facing balconies; families who have lived there for decades risk losing their homes for a church square. Is it acceptable for a church, in 2026, to trigger a housing crisis in a city already suffocating from insane rents? An old doubt plagues art historians: is this actually Gaudí’s church? The original blueprints went up in smoke during the Civil War in 1936. Successive architects worked from plaster fragments and notes. The harsh, cubist lines of the Passion facade have nothing to do with the organic shapes of the Nativity facade—the only one Gaudí saw. It’s a pastiche of styles held together by reinforced concrete and parametric software. At times, it looks like a high-tech Disneyland imitating a 20th-century mystical dream. Perhaps its beauty lay in being an endless work, a living organism. "Completed" via algorithms to hit an anniversary deadline, it has lost its wild soul, becoming a perfect, profitable monument. Deeply cynical. Full Article https://lnkd.in/eHPk9qpY #SagradaFamilia2026 #GaudiCentenary #UrbanContradictions #ArchitectureDebate #MassTourism