Questão de Língua Inglesa

Execução: Fundatec 1018_CE_10_NS_DM 16/10/2025 16:24:24 The Sagrada Família Takes Its Final Shape 01 The Sagrada Família is an immense, unfinished church in Barcelona. Its construction began 02 in 1882 on what was once outlying farmland and is now the city’s center. When I last visited the 03 building, in July, it was nine inches away from being the tallest in the city. Less than two weeks 04 later, when a ring beam to support the base of a cross was added to its biggest tower, dedicated 05 to Jesus, the church surpassed the city’s two highest skyscrapers, both of which stand at five 06 hundred and five feet tall. The sandstone basilica will reach its full height once the 07 fifty-five-foot-tall cross is installed atop the tower, later this month. It will be the tallest church 08 in the world. 09 But Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan architect who spent forty-three years working on the Sagrada 10 Família, did not think that his work should compete with God’s, so the basilica will remain a few 11 feet lower than the iconic peak of Montjuïc. Gaudí’s structure is a head-spinning mixture of 12 morphing geometrical forms, many inspired by nature. Its conical Art Nouveau pinnacles have 13 the lumpy beauty of sandcastles. Building such an unusual church has been a famously slow 14 project, even in a country where, to American eyes, many things move without haste. Gaudí was 15 confident that his vision would one day be fulfilled. “Providence will provide”, he assured a 16 student. 17 The Sagrada Família was founded as an expiatory church, meaning that it would be financed 18 by prayerful donations from people atoning for their sins. Pretty quickly, this pay-to-pray 19 arrangement gave way to a less ecclesiastical approach. In 1915, the Sagrada Família started 20 charging a visitor’s fee—currently twenty-six euros. It is now the largest tourist attraction on the 21 Iberian Peninsula. Last year, nearly five million visitors came to see the basilica’s dizzyingly 22 decorated interior; another nineteen million milled around outside, probably because they could 23 not get tickets, and gazed at its equally ornate façade, with its Byzantine-looking tiling, windows 24 shaped like honeycomb cells, and clumps of multicolored ceramic grapes. 25 Gaudí’s original plan called for a church with eighteen towers. In addition __ the Jesus 26 tower, another would be dedicated to Mary, with bluish granite ornaments meant __ evoke her 27 iconic cloak; there would also be spires for each __ the four Evangelists and the twelve apostles. 28 By 1977, just eight of the apostles’ towers had been built, along with parts of the main structure, 29 but the church still had no roof or columns. For a time, construction seemed to slow down further. 30 In 1984, National Geographic noted that there were “few workers remaining on a job that could 31 take another century”. Recently, under Jordi Faulí, the site’s ninth and current chief architect, 32 who was appointed __ 2012, things have moved much faster. Today, the church has fourteen 33 towers, including the four dedicated to the Evangelists and the nearly finished structure 34 celebrating Jesus. 35 In the nineties, the Sagrada Família team began using software originally created for 36 aerospace design to model Gaudí’s complex shapes. They then routed the plans to machines at 37 various quarries, which used diamond-tipped blades to cut rocks with precision. This innovation 38 preceded Faulí’s stewardship—it was the brainchild of an architect from New Zealand who 39 became an enthusiast of the project in the seventies—but nearly everything that the staff does 40 now involves digital tools. The designs for the towers’ mosaic tiles, which Gaudí constructed by 41 hand from ceramic shards, are workshopped and finalized using 3-D design software called 42 Rhinoceros. This method leaves behind a clear twenty-first-century trace, but it has allowed the 43 team to build sections at ten times the previous pace. The project has become a model of 44 techno-ecclesiasticism. Gaudí famously declared, “My client is not in a hurry”, but Faulí and those 45 around him seem to be. (Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/22/is-the-sagrada-familia-amasterpiece-or-kitsch – text specially adapted for this test).