Will ‘God's architect' become the next saint?
The odds for Gaudí are fairly good.
Gaudí, who died in 1926, was famously at the vanguard of Barcelona's
Modernisme artistic movement, the
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People wait in line to enter the Basílica de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. On April 14, 2025, Pope Francis placed Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan modernist architect once called 'God's architect' for his work on the Sagrada Familia, the world-famous basilica in Barcelona, on the path to sainthood.
SAMUEL ARANDA/NYT
A devout Catholic, he became increasingly pious and hermetic as he worked on the church, fasting and even sleeping in its workshop near the end. He was struck by a tram as he was walking to evening prayers, and he cared so little for appearances that the driver thought he was a beggar and took him to the pauper's hospital, where he died three days later. About
After his death, a leading prelate called him 'God's architect,' a sobriquet that has stuck for almost a century. As to the required miracle, the completion of the massive cathedral after 143 years might qualify.
In some ways, Gaudí is a puzzling choice for Pope Francis, who was known for his progressive efforts to open the church. By contrast, Spanish
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Still, the basilica is a place of superlatives: When completed, it will be the tallest church building in the world, and it is the world's largest unfinished church today. It contains not a single 90-degree angle, inside or out. These distinctions, and Gaudí's international fame — how many other Catholic architects have been celebrated in a
Many readings of Genesis place mankind as the
At a time when Gods' creation is being desecrated by the worst impulses of man, that is truly something worth venerating.
Renée Loth's column appears regularly in the Globe.
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