In-spired thinking

For most engineers

is synonymous with Antoni Gaudí, the genius who dreamed up the unfinished ‘shaggy gothic’ masterpiece La Sagrada Família.

Gaudí — a reclusive eccentric who rarely and reluctantly left his native Catalonia — designed Sagrada Família for its crusty stone and ceramic spires that soar like primeval trees. He planned two grand portals with sculpture as elaborate as any in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe. Work started in 1882, and the project is still estimated to be many years from completion.

But even though Gaudí died in 1926 aged 74, and his office and original drawings were destroyed in the anti-Catholic backlash following the Spanish Civil War in 1936, designers currently working on the cathedral are using state-of-the-art software technology to help interpret his original designs and hasten its completion.

Donations for the cathedral dwindled in the early 20th century, as Barcelona’s citizens became disenchanted with the radical conservatism espoused by Sagrada’s main backers.