Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
What are those unusual numbers on Sagrada Família?
SHORT ANSWER
They’re not hymn numbers or religious dates. They’re a small, yet magical, symbol of devotion
LONG ANSWER
Construction began on Antoni Gaudí’s gothic masterpiece, the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family – or Sagrada Família – in 1882, and the architect lived to see just one of 18 planned spires erected. Much of the look of the Barcelona landmark, scheduled for eventual completion in 2026, has been to Gaudí’s designs, but not all of it.
A singular addition can be spotted on the building’s Passion façade: a 4x4 grid of numbers, seemingly with no connection or meaning. It’s a magic square, where each of the rows, columns and diagonal lines add up to the same number. Although the sum on most 4x4 magic squares is 34, the Sagrada Família square is unusual as it doesn’t use all the numbers 1 to 16, and the magic number is 33, the age of Jesus Christ at the time of his crucifixion. There are a heap of other ways to make 33 using the numbers on the square as well – 310, in fact.
Josep Maria Subirachs, the sculptor working on the cathedral from 1986, added the square after taking inspiration from a 1514 engraving, , by Albrecht Dürer. Subirachs was a controversial figure, however, as he refused to make concessions to Gaudí’s style, so who knows what the famed
