Archdaily has reported on how numerous technologies were and continue to be used in the construction of Antoni Gaudí’s Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, from a highly crafted stone construction to the most modern 3D printing techniques and high strength concrete.
… construction….has taken so long that building technologies and materials have changed significantly from beginning to end…
ArchDaily writes:
In 1882, architect Francisco de Paula del Villar began the project for the Church following the guidelines of the time, and thus employed standard neo-Gothic elements: five longitudinal naves, ogival windows, buttresses, and a pointed bell tower. Due to differences with the Catholic Church, however, Villar resigned from the work and Antoni Gaudí, a 31-year-old architect, was appointed responsible in 1883, as shown in the work’s chronology. While the cruciform plan of the original project was maintained, Gaudi brought numerous significant changes to the building such as angular columns and hyperboloid vaults, eliminating the need for buttresses. By removing these important structural pieces that could withstand the horizontal thrusts of the heavy roof, the architect proposed the building’s iconic branched and angled columns instead.
Since then, the project has consistently been under construction, and is expected to be completed in 2026, the centenary of Antoni Gaudí’s death….
Almost all the building elements are currently built in concrete in the Sagrada Familia Church, often covered in natural stone. Concrete appears in various forms: precast elements, reinforced concrete, solid concrete, and parts with special concrete of very high structural strength, such as in the apse and transept columns, where microsilica was introduced in the concrete mixture, reaching a resistance of 80 MPa. In other portions of the structure, because of Gaudí’s complicated geometry, the fittings, and the impossibility of increasing cross sections, concrete features had to be developed with high fluidity and strength….
The construction of the Sagrada Familia has taken so long that building technologies and materials have changed significantly from beginning to end. Many researchers wonder if it could have actually been built with the materials at the time it was designed while still following every form imagined by the genius of Catalan modernism. Would the project have been adapted by Gaudí if he had lived to resolve all of the design issues? Or is his genius, as some researchers have pointed out, that he has developed a project that allows for the incorporation of new technologies and materials over time?
