Antoni Gaudi, a prominent architect in the Catalan Modernist movement, contributed many great buildings and structures to Barcelona and other parts of Spain. His celebrated work was heavily inspired by nature and religion. Gaudi’s most famous work, the Basilica of la Sagrada Familia, began construction in 1895 and has been under construction ever since. With regards to the slow pace of building, Gaudi famously said, “My client is not in a hurry,” referencing God as his client.
However, it looks like this landmark could finally be on the verge of completion. 2026 will mark 100 years after Gaudi’s death, and the use of building information modeling (BIM) is helping the project reach completion by that date. Read for more about this magnificent project and how it uses BIM.
In a BIM Technician Career You Can Consolidate Information
BIM technicians are valuable professionals as they help facilitate collaboration, communication and consolidation. With the Sagrada Familia, a wide array of archival research and analysis of documents has been necessary to both plan construction and stay true to Gaudi’s design and intentions. With this data, a virtual model was made for the first time ever to help increase collaboration and speed up construction.
You can see through the Sagrada Familia that your BIM skills will accelerate projects that have been operating at a crawling pace. Without the technology learned in building information modeling courses, this speed wouldn’t be possible. The church is a unique example of a project that has lived both without and with BIM technology, and the differences are clear. For example, structural issues can now be solved digitally. Decorative aspects of the building can follow digital patterns and various teams on the project can now collaborate more easily.
Building Information Modeling Courses Lead to Meaningful work
The Sagrada Familia is a global top ten tourist destination, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an icon of Barcelona. Weathering the storms of the Spanish Civil War and damage to Gaudi’s original plans during a 1936 arson attack, the church continues to rise, speeding up through the decades as technology improves. A building information modeling program gives you tools to make construction on sites like this more efficient and accurate. Improving the process of building or restoring heritage sites makes you a part of preserving human history, cultures and identities, and it’s an example of how you can pursue your passion with your BIM skills. Thanks to BIM technology, more people will get to see Gaudi’s most famous work fully completed.
Gaudi’s Towers Are Being Made Possible with Detailed Modeling
In 2014 structural design began on the six remaining towers, which will eventually sore over the church and the entire city of Barcelona. The challenge of building these massive towers, however, was ensuring that they were light enough so that the crypt and foundations would not be overloaded. Pre-stressed stone masonry was chosen, as this material is resistant to environmental stresses like earthquakes and wind. This stone is in panels, which must be craned in and fitted together.
Accuracy is imperative with these types of manoeuvres, so that the panels will match and securely fit together. This is the kind of problem you may encounter in your BIM technician career, where being able to digitally model construction details allows every part of the process to be planned out in detail beforehand. As a result, mistakes and surprises are greatly minimized so that important and complex projects like the Sagrada Familia are better able to stay on track.
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