Which Spanish architect designed the Sagrada Família in Art Nouveau style?

Antoni Gaudí designed the Sagrada Família in Barcelona in a style combining Catalan Modernisme, Gothic Revival, and Art Nouveau influences.

Construction began in 1882 under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. Gaudí took over the project in 1883 and radically transformed it, developing the organic forms, symbolic façades, branching columns, and complex tower system for which the basilica is known. He devoted much of the rest of his career to the church.

Gaudí’s design draws on Christian symbolism as well as natural geometry. The three major façades represent the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory, while the planned towers represent Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Evangelists, and the Apostles. The interior’s tree-like columns were intended to make the nave resemble a forest.

The building is often called simply the Sagrada Família, but it is a basilica rather than a cathedral. It also remains a work in progress: Gaudí died in 1926, and later architects have continued construction from surviving models, plans, and reconstructed material.