Plaça de Gaudí: The Nativity Façade in the Pond
Why is it significant?
Walk to the far side of the pond, turn around and look into the water. There it is, upside down and trembling: the Nativity Façade, its four spires doubled in the pond. This is the photograph everybody takes, and for good reason. It all started with a bookseller.
Key Facts
| Place | Plaça de Gaudí: The Nativity Façade in the Pond |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaça de Gaudí, Carrer de la Marina 278, 08013 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.40440, 2.17640 |
| Part of Walk | Gaudí's Endless Temple to Domènech's Garden Hospital: Sagrada Família & Sant Pau, Barcelona |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk to the far side of the pond, turn around and look into the water. There it is, upside down and trembling: the Nativity Façade, its four spires doubled in the pond. This is the photograph everybody takes, and for good reason.
It all started with a bookseller. Josep Maria Bocabella, a devout publisher of religious books, led a society of devotees of Saint Joseph, and in 1881 they bought this land with the idea of an expiatory temple, a church paid for entirely by donations, as an act of atonement. That rule still holds. No state budget has ever paid for the building. Alms, and today the tickets of millions of visitors, keep the cranes moving.
Now look at the façade itself. Gaudí chose to build this one first, the joyful one, the birth of Christ. Three portals, for Faith, Hope and Charity, and in the middle a green cypress tree, the tree of life, with white doves resting on it. At the foot of two columns, a sea turtle on the side nearer the sea and a land tortoise on the side nearer the mountains hold the whole thing up. Chameleons cling to the corners. Many of the angels and musicians were carved by Etsuro Sotoo, a Japanese sculptor who has worked here since 1978.
Gaudí saw only one of these towers finished, the bell tower of Saint Barnabas, completed in 1925, a year before he died. He reportedly joked that his client was not in a hurry. In 2005 this façade and the crypt were added to UNESCO's list of Gaudí's World Heritage works, and in 2010 Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the church as a basilica. Surprisingly, it only received a formal building licence from the City in 2019, after more than a century of construction.
Take one more look at the reflection. Then walk to the top corner of the square, where Carrer de la Marina meets Carrer de Provença, and step onto the wide pedestrian avenue heading away from the basilica.