REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SAGRADA FAMILIA BUILDERS DELEGATION BOARD, JOAN RIGOL

“Great respect for the past with an eye towards the future”

Last year we began the celebration of 125 years of the Sagrada Familia, a commemoration which ends around the middle of this year. This has been a unique opportunity to rewind history, review the origins of the project and to involve the entire world. The anniversary has been a tribute to the work of Gaudi, but also a recognition for those less known in the history of this Temple, such as Josep Maria Bocabella, the driving force behind the project. It has also allowed us to rescue from oblivion the names of successive architects who, whilst respecting Gaudi´s dream, have also managed to leave their mark.

The Sagrada Familia is a book of Christian faith, written with many hands: labourers, master builders, artisans and glaziers. As of today, there are already more than 300 pairs of hands daily contributing their work to raise the Temple. Coming from all over the world, it is a universal range of people that help fill this great melting pot of cultures that the Sagrada Familia represents.

We face the new phase of construction with renewed spirit and a clear objective: to ensure that the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia becomes the symbol of peace, brotherhood and universal justice that we all want. To the Construction Board this represents two challenges they must meet responsibly, illusion and a steady hand. On the one hand, the protection, study and dissemination of a single work, accumulation of the genius of Gaudi. This being the best way to complete the construction of the project he bequeathed to us.

With the deepest respect for the legacy of Gaudi, and using the most innovative technology in design and construction, we will soon see inside the closed Temple and the beginning of the construction of the elements which will bring the work to its conclusion: two sacristies, one on either side of the apse, four towers dedicated to the evangelists, the central dome dedicated to Jesus Christ, crowned with the cross and of special note with its 170 metres of height, the dome of the apse dedicated to the Mother of God and the facade of Heaven with four bell towers and the baptismal font to one side and the chapel of Penance and the Holy Sacrament, on the other.

With this confluence of glances to the past and into the future, the Temple Construction Board would like to thank all those who with their donations and help have raised the Sagrada Familia and made possible today what for so many has long been a dream: to reach the last stages and dream of the Temple finally being completed.

Joan Rigol i Roig

Chairman of the Sagrada Familia Construction Board