Sagnier and Tibidabo

Perched on top of Mt. Tibidabo, overlooking the entire city of Barcelona, is Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, over more commonly know as the Tibidabo church. This grand building was one of the first things I noticed while walking through the city on my very first day. My home stay, located on Carrer de Balmes, near Diagonal, has a perfect view of the church in one direction and the W hotel on the beach in the other. During one of my first dinners with my host, I asked them about the beautiful building located on top of Mt. Tibidabo behind the city. After a brief art history lesson, my host mother is an art history professor and a native of Barcelona, she informed me that the architect of the church was Enric Sagnier, her great uncle and godfather. During the course of my stay here, my host family has introduced me to their grandmother, Sagnier’s niece, who I was able to ask question to and hear stories from about Sagnier.

             The Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús is not just one building, but two actually. The church was built in two stages. First, construction on the lower crypt began in 1902 and was completed in 1911. Next the upper church was begun shortly after in 1912. The project consumed three decades of Sagnier’s life, finally being completed by his son, Josep Maria Sagnier, in 1961. The church was dedicated to The Sacred Heart of Jesus and built following a combination of Romanesque and neo-Gothic styles. Sagnier drew inspiration from the idea of the natural wall that the Tibidabo Mountain created between Barcelona and the Vallès district. He designed the lower church, or crypt, with towers and merlons in Romanesque style as the broad stone base for the upper church, that contained vertical Gothic lines, to sit upon. According to the original plans for the building, the original project was to have a flowery decorative repertoire but when construction commenced Sagnier chose to simplify the shapes. The construction on the church began during Sagnier's life, but after his death in 1931, the project was completed by his son Josep Maria Sagnier i Vidal in 1961. While many people regard the Templo Expiatorio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús as artistically ugly, it is one of Sagnier’s most famous works through out the city. Some other of his most famous works are the Palacio de Justicia located near the arc de Triomf, the Customs House at the end of las Ramblas near the statue of Christopher Columbus, and Casal del Ahorro, otherwise known as the head office for the Caixa de Pensions de Barcelona, located on Via Laietana.

            While Sagnier was a modernista architect, he was also much more. Throughout different points in his life, he embraced and utilized styles of neo-Classicism as well as neo-Romanesque.  Therefore, Sagnier’s work does not stand out as clearly to people because he does not have one unique style, the way Gaudi’s use of mosaic created from broken tiles, Trencadís, can be used as an identifier of his work.  Sagnier’s form was eclectic, changing with changes in taste, and technologies.

            There are three main time periods through which Sagnier’s work, especially in Barcelona, changed drastically. Prior to the turn of the century his work was grandiose. During the first century of the 1900’s he adopted a modernista style. Finally, after 1910 he turned to Neoclassicism. Many of the people who commissioned his works were either aristocrats or from the Catholic Church.