Gaudí’s work, beyond its form and constructive dimension, becomes a language that articulates profound philosophical and spiritual reflections, inviting disciplines to engage in dialogue, to meet and to understand one another. This was one of the central ideas of the session in which Francesc Torralba, philosopher, theologian, essayist and Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at La Salle-URL, explored the symbolism of Gaudí’s work, with special attention to the Glory façade of the Sagrada Familia, still pending construction.
“Gaudí wrote very little; what we have offers very few indications of his spirituality. He left many areas open, without defining them, aware that others would continue his work, thus allowing a margin of freedom, even though he set certain parameters for what should be included in the Glory façade,” said Torralba, Ratzinger Prize laureate and recent winner of the Josep Pla Award. The session forms part of the Vespres de Pensament cycle —a space for reflection and dialogue on the major questions of the contemporary world, organised by the Faculty of Philosophy at La Salle-URL— and is framed within the official programme of the Gaudí Year, which commemorates the centenary of the architect’s death with a series of initiatives and activities that reaffirm the relevance of his legacy from new perspectives.
The Glory façade: a symbolic language
In this regard, Torralba positioned the Glory façade as the culminating expression of this symbolic language. Conceived by Gaudí as a map of the afterlife, this work is meant to represent the Last Judgment, heaven, hell and purgatory, thus becoming a proposal that transcends architecture to turn into a reflection on the human condition. “Gaudí sculpts theology in stone,” the philosopher explained.
From this perspective, the session explored how Gaudí’s thought can be reinterpreted today through a contemporary lens, connecting architecture, art and theology with the great questions of our time. “Gaudí’s vision is profoundly hopeful: history will end well, even if it may not seem so,” Torralba noted. Far from being a work of the past, the Sagrada Familia thus emerges as a living, open discourse capable of engaging today’s society. “The Glory façade explains where we come from and where we are going—not individually, but collectively,” the theologian pointed out.
During the session, Francesc Torralba also highlighted Gaudí’s genius and the brilliance of his major work: “The Sagrada Familia is a total work of art: architecture, sculpture, music and art all converge in it. In this sense, it has many affinities with what Wagner proposed in his operas.” In fact, paraphrasing Armand Puig, Torralba compared Gaudí’s genius to that of Ramon Llull: “There are seven centuries between them, yet they are the two great geniuses in the Catalan language: Gaudí and Ramon Llull, who gives our university its name.”
Transdisciplinary dialogue to understand the present
The event also highlighted the importance of dialogue between disciplines as a key tool for understanding the complexity of the contemporary world. In the opening remarks, Carles Llinàs, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at La Salle-URL, emphasized that “the talk is approached through the convergence of knowledge, something very characteristic of our campus, where technology engages in dialogue with humanism and disciplines come together,” underscoring the transdisciplinary nature of La Salle-URL’s educational project.
For his part, the Director of the School of Architecture, Josep Ferrando, closed the event by highlighting the exceptional context the city is experiencing, with Barcelona as World Capital of Architecture 2026. He also framed the Gaudí Year as an opportunity to revisit the architect’s work and approach it through the interrelation of his creations, bringing it closer to the public and contributing to its preservation and dissemination: “The Gaudí Year encourages us to remember his work, but also to go further, to reinterpret everything he created from new perspectives and with a forward-looking vision."
