The Sagrada Família in Barcelona illuminated its two new towers for the first time on Friday, completed this year, a new stage in this extraordinary project started 140 years ago and now in its home stretch.
These two towers, dedicated to the evangelists Saint Luke and Saint Mark, and topped with two large sculptures in the shape of a bull and a lion, were illuminated after the traditional Christmas concert, which is held each year in the basilica designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.
With these two new structures, culminating at 135 meters in height, eleven of the 18 towers planned in this monumental work are now complete, including half of the six central towers, on which the construction committee is now focusing its efforts.
“By the end of 2023, we plan to have completed the towers dedicated to Mathieu and Jean, which would allow us to inaugurate the whole set dedicated to the evangelists”, explained Esteve Camps, deputy president of this private canonical foundation. , in a press release.
By 2026, the year in which Barcelona will celebrate the centenary of the death of the great Catalan architect, the construction committee plans to complete the Tower of Jesus Christ, which with its 172.5 meters in height will be the highest point of the building, in accordance with Gaudi’s project.
The committee, which finances the construction of the building thanks to private donations and income generated by tourists, had initially planned the end of the site precisely in 2026. But the stoppage of work during the pandemic forced it to review this schedule.
Despite the gradual return of visitors, the construction committee has not yet communicated the new date for the end of the work, which began in 1882, and to which Antoni Gaudi devoted four decades – until his death in 1926, hit by a tram. .
The new towers will be illuminated every evening until January 8.