UIC Barcelona School of Architecture hosted the third and final session of the Foros 2025 Architecture conference series, dedicated to the management of significant sacred heritage with a case example: the Sagrada Família of Barcelona. This session featured the participation of the architectural director of the temple, Dr Jordi Faulí; the engineer, technical manager, and lecturer Juan Ignacio Eskubi; the art historian Chiara Curti, and the architect and lecturer Dr Juan Trias de Bes.
Titled "Managing the Great Sacred Heritage: The Sagrada Família", the event brought together more than 300 students, professionals, and interested members of the public to delve into the architectural, constructive, symbolic, and spiritual dimension of this monumental work, considered one of the most unique cathedrals in the contemporary world.
The visionary legacy of Gaudí
Jordi Faulí, the current manager of the Sagrada Família project, elaborated on the architectural and spiritual thinking of Antoni Gaudí. "He designed a building that would be a compendium of the Christian faith," he summarised. He explained how the original project evolved under Gaudí's direction and also explained the symbolism of the different parts of the temple.
Faulí detailed the architectural elements of the temple, with a geometric and symbolic structure based on helical columns, catenaries, hyperboloid vaults, and skylights that channel natural light as an expression of mystery. He also highlighted Gaudí's ability to anticipate technical and structural solutions that could only be executed decades later.
Building the impossible: engineering at the service of symbolism
Engineer and lecturer at UIC Barcelona, Juan Ignacio Eskubi, shared the technical challenges of constructing a monumental work born from the creativity of a genius like the Sagrada Família. "On the first site visit, when you see the magnitude of the elements, you initially think they have made a mistake with the scale," he commented as an anecdote.
He explained how the towers have been structurally modelled, how materials such as high-strength concrete and duplex steel have been worked with, and how 1:1 scale models have been executed to foresee assembly problems and optimise processes.
Gaudí as a pedagogical and spiritual figure
Chiara Curti, art historian, disseminator, and scholar of the Sagrada Família, provided a more intimate look at the figure of Gaudí through the people who knew him: his way of working side by side with artisans, his vision of work as a spiritual expression, and his influence on generations of young architects.
"He followed his own criteria when choosing projects, which could be grandiose like the Franciscan missions in Tangier, or a humble iron artisan workshop," she remarked, and pointed out that "the key is the people he worked with; suppliers and clients are continuously repeated in a world where work is the fruit of a life lived together."
A reflection towards the future
The session concluded with the speech of Juan Trias de Bes on the role of time in architecture, using the example of the Sagrada Família. He reflected on the importance of strategic decisions over time, "such as deciding to complete entire façades from the beginning, the way of continuing the work after Gaudí's death, or the completion of the tower of the Virgin Mary during the pandemic."
Foros 2025 was organised by UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, under the academic direction of Dr Josep Lluís i Ginovart and Dr Cinta Lluís Teruel, and with the coordination of Dr Ricardo Gómez Val and Dr Juan Trias de Bes. The series is part of the preparation of Barcelona as the World Capital of Architecture 2026.
