2026 will be remembered as the year when millions of eyes from around the world focused on the Sagrada Família and, with it, on Barcelona. The blessing of the Jesus Christ Tower, on June 10, turned the city into the setting for a grand spectacle of fireworks, drones, and massive celebrations, with an impact that, at times, recalled the atmosphere of the 1992 Olympic Games. For a few days, this spectacle even managed to overshadow the eternal question that has accompanied the temple since construction began in 1882: when will the Sagrada Família be finished?
A question that, once the euphoria has passed, inevitably returns to the forefront. The answer now given by the Construction Board once again puts the completion of the project at around a decade. “We hope that, with all the experience and lessons learned during the works, we can complete the project within about ten years,” said Xavier Martínez, general director of the Sagrada Família Construction Board Foundation.
The ten-year horizon, however, is not new. The Construction Board had already set it two years ago, but the timeline has since shifted, and this remains the reference point the temple is working with today. Martínez adds an important nuance: this is not a fixed date, but a goal conditioned by an urban planning issue that goes beyond the pace of the works.
Because completing the project as Gaudí conceived it not only involves decorating the facades and erecting towers, but also building the grand staircase of the Glory facade, conceived by Antoni Gaudí as the main entrance to the temple. A staircase that today the Construction Board cannot build because the necessary space it would occupy in front of the facade is occupied by residential buildings on Mallorca Street. “The Glory facade needs a perspective and a distance that do not exist today because, “just in front of the temple, we have a physical and material impediment: a building,” Martínez specified.
Martínez refers to the block located at numbers 410-414 of Mallorca Street, built by the developer Núñez i Navarro at the end of the 20th century. The building occupies part of the space that the Sagrada Família needs to deploy the Glory facade and, above all, to build the grand staircase that Gaudí designed as the main access to the temple.
Since this building is the main impediment to completing Gaudí's project —and the Construction Board has already warned that it considers this intervention "unavoidable"—, the proposal now put forward is a minimal solution: relocating the residents of this block to a new building that would have to be built on a nearby plot, also on Mallorca Street, which is owned by the Sagrada Família, as Martínez has detailed. The possibility of moving the residents who have lived there for decades had appeared previously, but now the Construction Board is recovering this option and proposing it as a concrete solution. Its application, however, still depends on an agreement with the City Council and the residents.
Although this solution would not allow the complete urbanistic project of Gaudí to be finished —his proposal envisioned a large square in front of the Glory facade that would reach Aragón Street—, it would make it possible to free up the immediate space in front of the temple and execute an essential part of the project: the grand staircase for access to the facade.
To make this possible, however, the Sagrada Família, the Barcelona City Council, and the residents have been holding three-way talks for some time about the future of the building and the urbanistic solution. According to Martínez, negotiations are "very advanced," but there is still no agreement or timetable. "We have no answer or a timetable ahead," he stated, urging the council to "make a move."
The Glory, the last great challenge
But the Glory facade is not only the last great constructive front of the Sagrada Família. In Gaudí's project, it is the culmination of the temple's journey, after the Nativity and Passion facades, and represents resurrection and the arrival to eternal life. That is why he placed the main entrance of the basilica there, preceded by a grand staircase and a monumental space conceived as the last section of this journey.
Beyond the staircase, however, the Glory façade will be the main protagonist of the works that the Sagrada Família will have to execute to achieve the goal of completing the project in a decade. As Jordi Faulí, architect director of the Sagrada Família, has recalled, the façade “will occupy a good part of the constructive effort of the coming years”. The foundations are already built and the temple plans to soon begin raising the four lateral towers. It is, in fact, as far as current licenses allow: the construction of the towers, since to continue beyond, the urbanistic question of the space located in front of the temple will have to be resolved, which also conditions other elements of the project, such as the cantilevers of the narthex.
And there will still be another unknown to resolve related to this façade: how it will be artistically decorated. Three sculptors —Cristina Iglesias, Miquel Barceló and Javier Marín— were selected from among twenty creators to present proposals, which they submitted at the beginning of the year. The three projects have already been studied by the Construction Board, but a decision has not yet been made. “It may be that one artist is chosen, it may be that more than one artist intervenes or that none is considered suitable, or even that other paths are studied”, Faulí pointed out. As with the urbanistic question, there is no planned date to resolve this unknown either. The Board recognizes that it is a decision that requires time and study, because it is one of the central pieces of the temple.
The other major construction fronts
But the Glory and the space surrounding it are not the only front that the Sagrada Família will have to complete in the coming years. The project keeps other works open that advance in parallel and that also form part of the final stretch of the temple. Although the Jesus Christ Tower was completed with the placement and blessing of the cross that crowns it, this does not mean that everything is finished: the interior of the cross still needs to be completed and adapted, also conceived as a visitable space and as a great viewpoint over the Catalan capital.
Inside, a mosaic of more than 50,000 pieces will recreate what the Sagrada Família describes as the origin of the firmament, with a gradation of greenish and reddish colors until reaching white, representing the first light of the universe. To get there, the route of the three elevators will also need to be completed: the first sections, up to 35 meters, are already built; the second will reach 85 meters and the third will allow completing the ascent to the interior of the cross. The forecast is that this space will not be open to visitors until 2028, once the elevators are finished, and that access will be limited to about ten people at a time.
At the same time, work continues on the Assumption chapel, crowned by a large blue dome 30 meters high that will represent the blue mantle of the Virgin Mary, spread over the chapel space and symbolically supported by four angels. Work that visitors who come to the Sagrada Família these days will be able to observe firsthand: three of the sculptures that will be part of the exterior of the chapel will be exhibited in the materials courtyard, Sant Josep Oriol, a work by Mercè Riba, and Sant Roc —two figures especially linked to the city of Barcelona—, as well as one of the four angels that will crown the dome and support the blue mantle.
The Sagrada Família looks towards Barcelona
A large part of the visitors who will access the temple these days will do so because of the open days that the basilica organizes every year for the Mercè festivities. From September 24 to 27, some 20,000 people will be able to visit the interior of the temple for free, after a draw that this year has registered some 130,000 registrations, 36% more than the previous year.
Martínez has pointed out that this increase is largely due to the interest generated by the basilica following the culmination and blessing of the Jesus Christ Tower on June 10, especially among the Barcelona public. This interest has also been noted in regular visits: this 2026, Spain has been the main country of origin for visitors, with about 400,000 people —half of whom are Catalans—, ahead of the United States, which usually occupied this first position. A fact that shows how, after once again capturing the attention of the whole world, the Sagrada Família has also strengthened its bond with its closest public.