The “Glorious Cross” has been installed on the upper portico of the Passion façade in the basilica of the Sagrada Familìa, in Barcelona. It is the website of the archdiocese that tells about this new step in the building of the basilica. At 7.50 metre high and 4.25 metre wide, the Cross had already been included in architect Antonio Gaudì’s project in 1892. “This huge rocky cross stands for Christ Resurrected and emphasises victory over death”; actually Jesus’s body is not hanging there and it shows the cross, an “instrument of torture turning into an instrument of love and charity”, architect Xisco Llabrés explained.
The installation has been “a complex operation”, as the eight blocks of granite from the French region of Tarn which it is made up of and which weigh 18 tons had to be lifted: assembled on the ground, they were lifted and joined together 30 metres above ground, above the 18-column portico. On Monday, July 9th, three Roman travertine angels sculpted by Lau Feliu will be placed at the foot of the Cross.