The Passion Façade from Plaça de la Sagrada Família
Why is it significant?
Find a spot in the square where you can see the whole western façade at once: six great slanting columns like bones or bare tree trunks, a heavy overhanging porch, and figures carved in hard, angular planes, almost like cubist woodcuts.
Key Facts
| Place | The Passion Façade from Plaça de la Sagrada Família |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaça de la Sagrada Família, 08013 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.40250, 2.17240 |
| Part of Walk | Gaudí's Endless Temple to Domènech's Garden Hospital: Sagrada Família & Sant Pau, Barcelona |
| Generated | Generated |
Find a spot in the square where you can see the whole western façade at once: six great slanting columns like bones or bare tree trunks, a heavy overhanging porch, and figures carved in hard, angular planes, almost like cubist woodcuts. It is the opposite of the soft, dripping stone you may have seen in photos.
This is the Passion Façade, which tells the story of the last days and the death of Christ. Gaudí designed it to be harsh on purpose. He said, in effect, that it should frighten people, with light and shadow cutting like a knife. Work began in 1954 from his drawings, and from 1987 the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs spent nearly two decades filling it with figures.
Subirachs's style divided Barcelona. Some called it a betrayal of Gaudí; others said Gaudí himself had wanted each generation to leave its own mark. Read the scenes like a zigzag, starting low on the left with the Last Supper and climbing in an S-shape towards the Crucifixion near the top.
Now look for two hidden things. To the left of the main door there is a square grid of numbers carved into the stone. Add up any row, column or diagonal and you get 33, the age of Christ at his death. And look at the helmets of the Roman soldiers: their shapes are borrowed from Gaudí's own chimneys on the roof of La Pedrera. Somewhere among the figures, Subirachs even placed a small portrait of Gaudí himself, notebook in hand, as if he were watching the scene and taking notes.
High above, the towers of the apostles rise in fours, their tops covered in coloured mosaic and crowned with mitres and crosses, and the tall central towers keep climbing behind them. Now walk round the corner to the right, along Carrer de Provença, to the back of the church, where it all began.