Antoni Gaudí took charge of the Sagrada Família in 1883, aged 31, and worked on it until a tram struck him down in 1926. He knew he would not see it finished, and a century later the basilica is still a building site. Along the way he filled Barcelona with buildings that seem alive. Twelve stops between the lampposts of his first commission, the dark palace of his great patron, the perfect grid of the Eixample, the house of bones, the quarry no one wanted, the summer house covered in ceramic flowers, the dragon at the park gates, the square of the mosaic serpent, the house where he lived alone, the crypt calculated with strings and bags of shot, the façade he saw and the façade he never did. Approximate audio duration: 25 minutes.
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Gaudí: el arquitecto que dedicó 43 años a un templo que sabía que no vería terminado
Antoni Gaudí tomó las obras de la Sagrada Família en 1883, con 31 años, y trabajó en ellas hasta que un tranvía lo atropelló en 1926. Sabía que no la vería terminada, y un siglo después la basílica sigue en obra. En el camino llenó Barcelona de edificios que parecen vivos. Doce paradas entre los faroles de su primer encargo, el palacio oscuro de su gran mecenas, la cuadrícula perfecta del Eixample, la casa de los huesos, la cantera que nadie quería, la casa de verano llena de flores de cerámica, el dragón de la entrada del parque, la plaza de la serpiente de mosaico, la casa donde vivió solo, la cripta calculada con cuerdas y bolsas de perdigones, la fachada que llegó a ver y la fachada que no. Duración aproximada de audio: 25 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~25 min of audio · 36.08 km on foot (~9 h walking) · about 9 h 30 min in total
You are in the Plaça Reial, an arcaded square a step from La Rambla, with palm trees and a fountain in the middle. Look at the two iron lampposts on either side of the fountain. They have six arms and, at the very top, a winged helmet. They are Antoni Gaudí's first public work.
Gaudí was born in 1852 in the Camp de Tarragona, the son of a coppersmith. From his father he learned to think in volumes, watching him bend sheets of copper. He came to Barcelona to study architecture and qualified in 1878, at twenty-six.
That same year the city council asked him to design a lamppost for the city. Ga…
2
The Patron's Palace
You are in front of the Palau Güell, on a narrow street in the Raval. Look at the grey stone façade, almost severe, with two great gateways shaped like parabolic arches. Between them, a wrought-iron grille holds the Catalan coat of arms.
Eusebi Güell was one of the richest men in Barcelona, an owner of textile mills. He commissioned this residence from Gaudí, and it was built between 1886 and 1888. Gaudí was just over thirty and had already agreed, at the same time, to take charge of the Sagrada Família.
The gateways were this wide to let carriages in. A ramp took them down to the stables in…
3
The Grid Where Gaudí Broke the Rules
You are on the Passeig de Gràcia, at the junction with Carrer del Consell de Cent. Look at the four corners: they are not right angles but cut off diagonally. The whole district around you, the Eixample, repeats this pattern block after block.
Until the mid nineteenth century Barcelona was confined within its medieval walls, one of the most crowded cities in Europe. Demolition of the walls began in 1854. A plan was needed for all the empty land opening up towards the mountains.
The plan was drawn up by the engineer Ildefons Cerdà and approved in 1860. A grid of blocks about one hundred and t…
4
The House of Bones
You are in front of the Casa Batlló. Look at the façade: it glitters with pieces of glass and ceramic in blues and greens, like the surface of a lake. The balconies look like masks, or skulls. And the columns on the ground floor are shaped like bones.
That is why Barcelona called it the casa dels ossos, the house of bones. Yet the building is not Gaudí's from the foundations up. It is an ordinary house from 1877 that the textile industrialist Josep Batlló bought and asked him to remodel. Gaudí transformed it completely between 1904 and 1906.
Now look at the roof. It is a curve covered in cer…
5
The Quarry Barcelona Laughed At
You are in front of the Casa Milà, on the corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Provença. Look at the pale stone façade: it undulates like a cliff or like waves, without a single straight line. The balconies are tangles of wrought iron that look like seaweed.
It was commissioned by Pere Milà and his wife, Roser Segimon, and built between 1906 and 1912. It was Gaudí's last private house. Many people in Barcelona at the time found it hideous and nicknamed it La Pedrera, the quarry. Newspaper cartoons poked fun at it.
The secret lies in the structure. The façade carries no load: the building rests on…
6
The First House
You are on Carrer de les Carolines, in the Gràcia district, facing the Casa Vicens. Look at the façade: bands of reddish brick, green and white tiles in a chequerboard and others with yellow flowers. It looks like a house from an oriental fairy tale.
This is the first house Gaudí designed. It was commissioned by Manuel Vicens, a stockbroker, as a summer residence. It was built between 1883 and 1885. In those days Gràcia was still a separate town from Barcelona, surrounded by market gardens.
The flowers on the tiles are French marigolds, orange flowers that, the story goes, grew on the plot. …
7
A Luxury Estate That Failed
You are at the main entrance of Park Güell, on Carrer d'Olot. On either side of the gate stand two pavilions with roofs that look like whipped cream, like fairy-tale cottages. Ahead rises a double staircase, and in the middle, a dragon covered in coloured mosaic.
What is now a park was meant to be something else. In 1899 Eusebi Güell bought land on a bare hill on the outskirts, and the following year Gaudí began to develop it. The idea was a garden city in the English style, with about sixty plots for the houses of wealthy families.
That is why it is called Park, in English. Gaudí laid out p…
8
The Market and the Mosaic Serpent
You are in the Hypostyle Hall, beneath the great square of Park Güell. Look around you: eighty-six Doric-style columns, the outer ones leaning, as if bracing against the weight of the hillside. On the ceiling are large mosaic medallions, like suns.
This space was meant to be the estate's market. The columns are not just decorative. Inside, they collect the rainwater that falls on the square above and channel it into an underground cistern. The mouth of the dragon on the staircase works as an overflow.
The ceiling medallions were largely made by Josep Maria Jujol, Gaudí's most brilliant colla…
9
The House Where He Lived Alone
You are in front of a pink house with a pointed tower topped by a cross, among the park's trees. This is the Casa Museu Gaudí. Curiously, it was not designed by Gaudí but by his collaborator Francesc Berenguer, as a show house to attract buyers to the estate.
No one bought it. In 1906 Gaudí acquired it and moved in with his elderly father and an orphaned niece, Rosa Egea. His father died that same year. His niece died in 1912. From then on Gaudí lived alone.
He never married and had no children. Over the years he grew ever more religious and austere. He fasted rigorously, dressed carelessly …
10
The Church Calculated with Strings
You are in the Colònia Güell, in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, facing a low building of dark brick and stone half hidden among pine trees. Look at the portico: the columns are not upright but lean at different angles, like tree trunks. This is the crypt of a church that was never finished.
From 1890 Eusebi Güell had built an industrial colony here: a textile mill with houses, a school and a theatre for the workers. He commissioned Gaudí to design the colony's church. Gaudí spent about ten years studying it before work began in 1908.
To calculate it he invented an astonishing method. From the cei…
11
The Façade Gaudí Lived to See
You are in the Plaça de Gaudí, beside the pond. On the other side of the water rises the Nativity façade of the Sagrada Família. Look at the stone: it is so densely carved it seems to be melting. There are angels, animals, plants, stars, and above them four towers ending in coloured pinnacles.
The church was not Gaudí's idea. It was promoted by a devout bookseller, Josep Maria Bocabella, and the first stone was laid on 19 March 1882, to a neo-Gothic design by the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. After disagreements, Del Villar resigned. In 1883 the project passed to Gaudí, then thirty…
12
The Tram, the Tomb and the Church That Keeps Growing
You are in front of the Passion façade, on the Carrer de Sardenya side. Notice the contrast with the one you have just left: here the stone is smooth, the figures angular, almost geometric, and the columns look like bones. This is the façade of Christ's death, and Gaudí wanted it to inspire fear.
On 7 June 1926 Gaudí left the site as he did every afternoon, walking towards the church of Sant Felip Neri. On the Gran Via, at the corner of Carrer de Bailèn, he was struck by a tram. He was seventy-three. He was so poorly dressed and carried so little that no one recognised him.
He was taken, as …
How long does the "Gaudí: the Architect Who Gave 43 Years to a Church He Knew He Would Never See Finished" audio tour take?
It has about 25 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 36.08 km walking route (~9 h on foot). Plan roughly 9 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Lampposts of a Newly Qualified Architect" (coordinates 41.3801, 2.1754). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Barcelona and pick "Gaudí: the Architect Who Gave 43 Years to a Church He Knew He Would Never See Finished". No account required to start.
