Gaudi and the Miraculous Building

Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the vast Cathedral that dominates the skyline of Barcelona, is at last nearing completion – 132 years after work began. In architectural terms, the church rivals some of the world’s greatest buildings.

Jo Fidgen visits Barcelona for Easter, against the backdrop of the Palm Sunday processions and ceremonies in which Gaudi always took part, to discuss Gaudi’s life and the miraculous nature of his work.

Beginning at his house in the famous ‘Parc Guell’ overlooking the city, Jo talks to a Gaudi historian about his background, ideas and often eccentric lifestyle. She traces Gaudi’s footsteps down to the Sagrada Familia and asks members of the clergy and congregation about Gaudi’s deep spiritual convictions. Jo also crosses the city to the church where he made confession and meets the founders of the Gaudi Club – a group set up in 1992 to campaign for Gaudi’s beatification.

She finds that rather Gaudi setting out to impose his faith on his most famous building it was actually the other way round, working on the cathedral converted Gaudi and his new found Catholicism soon dominated his life as much as the Sagrada Familia did.

Jo examines Gaudi’s legacy and explores the evidence put before the Vatican’s Congregation of the Causes for Saints, who decide who should be beatified, does this magnificent, ornate building, built to represent this simple living man of Catalonia deserve to be called a miracle?