Libro: The Temple and the City: The Sagrada Familia and the Making of Modern Barcelona

The Sagrada Família is one of the most celebrated buildings in the world. Millions of visitors travel to Barcelona every year to admire Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece. Yet the history of the Temple is also the history of its relationship with the city that surrounds it.
Conceived on the outskirts of Barcelona within the rational grid of Ildefons Cerdà's Eixample, the Sagrada Família gradually became a force that challenged the urban logic of the modern city. Over more than a century, Temple and city evolved together, shaping one another in unexpected ways.
Drawing on architectural history, urban planning, and the transformation of Barcelona, The Temple and the City offers a fresh perspective on one of the world's most iconic monuments. Rather than focusing solely on Gaudí or the basilica itself, it explores the complex and often turbulent relationship between an extraordinary building and the city that made it possible.
Part history, part urban essay, this book reveals how the story of the Sagrada Família is inseparable from the making of modern Barcelona.
In this book you will discover:
• The origins of the Sagrada Família and the vision of its founder, Josep Maria Bocabella.
• How Ildefons Cerdà's rational plan for the Eixample created the urban setting in which the Temple emerged.
• The transformation of the Sagrada Família from a peripheral project into the defining landmark of modern Barcelona.
• The urban conflicts, planning debates, and social tensions generated by the growth of the Temple.
• A new interpretation of the relationship between architecture, urban planning, and the making of the modern city.
For readers interested in architecture, urban history, Barcelona, and the work of Antoni Gaudí, The Temple and the City offers an original perspective on one of the world's most remarkable monuments.