Workers at Barcelona’s Sagrada Família installed the lower arm of the giant cross on the Tower of Jesus Christ on 31 October 2025, raising the basilica to 162.91 meters and nudging it past Germany’s 161.53-meter Ulm Minster—the tallest completed church tower since 1890. “With the lower cross arm, the central tower now reaches a height of 162.91 meters and thus surpasses the Ulm Minster for the first time—the previously highest completed church tower in the world,” said the basilica, according to the Associated Press.
BBC News noted that the placement also made the basilica the tallest building in Barcelona, eclipsing Torre Mapfre and Hotel Arts. Crews planned to add the remaining sections of the cross by June 2026, when the Tower of Jesus Christ would stand 172.5 meters tall. That date will coincide with the centenary of Antoni Gaudí’s death, and organizers are preparing more than one hundred tributes, including an international congress, exhibitions of unpublished drawings, and a Eucharist, reported La Voz del Interior. “The request for papal attendance is being processed,” said Esteve Camps, delegate president of the Board of Constructors, according to La Nación.
Gaudí took charge of the project in 1883, transforming an unremarkable neo-Gothic plan into a structure packed with Christian symbolism. He insisted the church remain lower than Barcelona’s Montjuïc hill (177.72 meters), so the planned 172.5-meter height would respect that limit, Infobae wrote. At his death on 10 June 1926—after he was struck by a tram—only one of the eventual eighteen towers stood. A fire set by Catalan anarchists during the Spanish Civil War destroyed many of his models and drawings, slowing work for decades, BBC News recalled.
Tourism revived construction in recent years. The Sagrada Família Foundation said 4.9 million visitors bought tickets last year, generating 44.7 million euros toward building costs; about 15 percent of ticket holders came from the United States, the Associated Press reported. The project relies on ticket revenue and private donations. Although the pandemic halted work in 2020, cranes soon returned, and officials now expect to finish the main structure in 2026 and the decorative elements—sculptures, interior details, and a grand stairway—around 2035, stated Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Today the basilica operates as both a construction site and an active place of worship. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site, and its flowing façades—Nativity, Passion, and the still-rising Glory—depict key moments in Christian history. Artisans continued carving statues while crane operators guided the 17-meter-tall, 13.5-meter-wide cross into position. “Seeing how the work grows fills us with pride,” said one operator, according to National Geographic Historia.
When the final section of the cross is secured, the basilica will complete Gaudí’s vision of eighteen towers: one for Jesus Christ, one for the Virgin Mary, four for the evangelists, and twelve for the apostles.
Written with the help of a news-analysis system.