Sagrada Familia Interiors

Stained Glass Windows

Gaudi's love for colour is well known and predominant in all his work. The Sagrada Familia is no exception. The large, vibrant stained glass windows of the Sagrada Familia paint the interior of the basilica with beautiful hues of red, green, blue and yellow. In order to achieve balance between the colours of the glass and natural light, the windows have been carefully arranged with the brightly coloured windows at the bottom and the translucent windows on top, lighting up the interiors and making the vaulted ceilings stand out. Time your visit in the afternoon or at sunset, and you will see natural sunlight pour through these colourful fragments of glass. A spectacular sight! 

Apse

In architecture, one half of a dome roofed area is called an Apse. In a church, the Apse is usually the structure that houses the altar. The Sagrada Familia’s Apse was built by Gaudí in 1894, immediately after the construction of the crypt was completed. The open structure of the apse, with its beautiful windows, floods the apse with light during the day. The raised altar lies in the center of the apse and is crowned by the Latin cross with a canopy decorated with grapevines. The organ pipes are placed behind the altar.

The inside walls of the apse are decorated with angels’ heads and tears. The apse is surrounded by seven chapels and has side stairs to its left and right. These stairs lead to spiral staircases from the crypt and continue up into their respective façades. Two big stone snails crawling down the walls of the apse act as an indication for this spiral staircase.

Crypt Of The Expiatory Temple

The Crypt at Sagrada Familia is the oldest part of the Church and is said to have been under works even before Gaudi was commissioned to design and build the rest of Sagrada Familia. Unlike the rest of Sagrada Familia, the Crypt is constructed in Neo-Renaissance style with mosaic floors depicting luscious vines, columns that are richly decorated with roots, leaves and branches; all of which served as a precursor to the fantastic concepts that were to become Gaudi's intrepid designs. Antoni Gaudi is buried in the Crypt ( to the left of the main altar) and there are frequent masses held in Crypt.

Sagrada Familia Museum

The Sagrada Familia Museum is an underground exhibition that houses Gaudi’s construction models, drawings, contemporary photographs and liturgical furnishings. In the fire of 1936, many of Gaudi’s designs and plaster models were destroyed. After a painstaking process of collecting the destroyed models and restoring them, the Sagrada Familia Museum was opened in the semi-basement under the Passion façade.

Today, visitors can look at these models to get an understanding of the scale of the construction that Gaudi initiated. The complexity of it all is not lost when one goes through his models and drawings. The exhibitions are part of the new “Inspired by nature” section and feature a 102-m² space with large-format photos and 20 plaster models. The museum aims at helping visitors understand the role nature played in Gaudi’s designs.