Tower of the Virgin Mary

Barcelona’s skyline has been a construction site for over a hundred years, a jagged mess of cranes and scaffolding that looks like a cathedral trying to claw its way out of the earth. But in late 2021, something changed. They hoisted a massive, twelve-pointed star of glass and steel onto the Tower of the Virgin Mary, and for the first time in generations, the city felt like it was actually getting somewhere. This isn't just another spire in Antoni Gaudí’s fever dream; it’s the second-tallest point of the Sagrada Família and a massive technical middle finger to the impossible.

When you stand at the base of the Carrer de Provença side, you’re looking at 138 meters of stone and obsession. Most of the other towers are cramped, claustrophobic stone needles, but the Tower of the Virgin Mary is different. It’s hollow. Gaudí designed it this way to act as a giant light well, funneling sunshine directly onto the altar below. It’s a chimney for the divine, a structural trick that turns heavy stone into a conduit for brightness. If you’ve ever felt the weight of the world in the dark corners of a Gothic cathedral, this place is the antidote. It’s airy, it’s bright, and it smells faintly of incense and the sweat of the thousands of tourists shuffling through the nave.

The star itself—the Stella Matutina—is the real draw. It’s a 5.5-ton beast of textured glass that glows from within at night. Some locals complained it looked like a Christmas decoration that someone forgot to take down, but they’re wrong. It’s a beacon. In a city that has survived civil wars, anarchist uprisings, and the slow-motion car crash of over-tourism, that star represents a rare moment of completion. You can’t actually climb into the star—don't be an idiot—but you can take the elevator up the tower to see the city spread out like a map of Eixample’s rigid grid.

Let’s be honest: the Sagrada Família is a circus. It’s crowded, the tickets are expensive, and the gift shop is a nightmare of Gaudí-themed trinkets. But when you look up at the Tower of the Virgin Mary, you’re seeing the work of people who spent their entire lives building something they knew they’d never see finished. That kind of ego-free dedication is rare in 2025. The stonemasons and architects working here today are finishing a conversation that started in 1882.

Is it worth the price of admission? If you care about architecture, yes. If you want to see what happens when a human being decides to ignore the laws of probability and common sense, absolutely. Just don't expect a quiet moment of reflection. You’ll be sharing that light with five hundred other people holding iPhones. But even through the crowd, when the sun hits that tower just right and the interior of the basilica turns into a kaleidoscope of orange and blue, you’ll understand why people have been obsessed with this pile of rocks for over a century. It’s beautiful, it’s terrifying, and it’s finally, mercifully, almost done.