On February 20th, workers secured the nearly 15-foot upper arm of a cross atop the Tower of Jesus Christ on the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. With that, the basilica's exterior is now finally finished.

The building stands 566 feet tall. Construction began in 1882. Do the math, and you arrive at a number that should humble every modern institution that promises transformation on a quarterly timeline: more than 140 years of continuous, private effort toward a single vision.

There is still a lot of work left. Construction now shifts to the interior, with a planned completion date of 2034, a full 152 years after breaking ground.

A Cathedral Built on Patience

According to Popular Science, renowned 19th-century architect Antoni Gaudí drew on a mixture of both modern and Gothic themes when the project launched in 1882. The pioneer of Catalan art nouveau design continued contributing to the project for the next four decades, devoting the last 15 years of his life exclusively to the endeavor.

By the time Gaudí died in 1926, less than 25 percent of the church had been erected. He reportedly joked about the pace with a line that says more about civilizational confidence than any modern mission statement could: "My client is not in a hurry."

His client, of course, was God. That kind of long-horizon thinking has become almost incomprehensible in a culture addicted to instant results and quarterly earnings calls. Gaudí understood something most modern builders, literal and figurative, do not: that permanence requires patience, and that the most important work outlasts the person who begins it.

War, Destruction, and Rebuilding

Portions of the basilica, along with some of Gaudí's initial plans and models, were destroyed following the onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Famed 1984 and Animal Farm author George Orwell once called it "one of the most hideous buildings in the world." He went further in Homage to Catalonia, his memoir of the Spanish Civil War:

"I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up."

The anarchists didn't manage it. Neither did decades of war, political upheaval, or funding uncertainty. Work on the Sagrada Família has progressed almost continually since 1940, thanks to private funding. No government program. No taxpayer subsidy demands oversight committees and environmental reviews. Private devotion, sustained across generations.

That detail alone deserves attention. In an era when publicly funded infrastructure projects routinely blow past deadlines by decades and budgets by billions, a privately funded cathedral kept building through a civil war, a world war, and every cultural convulsion of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Vision Still Unfolds

The basilica features 18 separate spires representing the 12 apostles and the four evangelists, among other figures. This month's completion of the cross coincides with the hundredth anniversary of Gaudí's death, a fitting symmetry for a project defined by its reverence for the original architect's intent.

Gaudí also conducted acoustic surveys to ensure the ringing from wind-driven tubular bells inside each tower would funnel down into the church itself. Careful analysis and computer modeling efforts have guided modern builders in honoring Gaudí's original goals despite the destruction of many of his plans.

Among the elements still to come will be an Agnus Dei sculpture designed by Andrea Mastrovito, the Italian artist who won a competition for the honor last year. Mastrovito's work will be composed of glass fragments and suspended from the cross's upper arm inside a funnel-like geometric structure known as a hyperboloid.

What a Cathedral Teaches a Disposable Culture

There is something profoundly countercultural about the Sagrada Família in 2026. We live in a world that tears down statues, renames buildings, and memory-holes its own history on a rolling basis. Institutions that once measured their ambitions in centuries now pivot every news cycle. The average American building is designed to last 50 years. This cathedral was designed to last forever, and its builders accepted they would never see it finished.

That acceptance is not defeatism. It is the deepest form of confidence: the belief that what you are building matters more than whether you get credit for completing it. It is an orientation toward the transcendent that modern secular culture finds genuinely alien.

Private citizens funded it. Faithful architects preserved it. Workers across five generations built it. No committee voted to abandon the project when tastes changed. No bureaucrat decided Gaudí's vision was insufficiently inclusive.

If all goes according to plan, the Sagrada Família will finally reach completion by 2034. One hundred and fifty-two years after a group of people decided to build something that would outlast them all.

Gaudí's client, it turns out, really wasn't in a hurry.