7The Sagrada Família Was Damaged During the Spanish Civil War
The basilica’s history includes a dramatic and destructive chapter.
In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, the Sagrada Família was vandalized. Gaudí’s workshop was damaged, plans and photographs were destroyed, and many of his plaster models were smashed.
This could have caused permanent damage to the project because Gaudí’s models contained important information about his architectural ideas.
Fortunately, surviving material, published photographs and plans, along with painstaking reconstruction work, allowed later architects to continue the project. UNESCO notes that thousands of fragments from the damaged models were collected and used to reconstruct several of them.
