La Sagrada Familia: Nativity façade

In 1893, Gaud� had started work on the fa�ade of the Nativity: this is where his own conception of the structure began to appear, dominated by towers. The triple portals (1903) of the fa�ade, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity, rise out of the ground as neo-Gothic elements but are increasingly clothed and then draped in natural forms until the angular Gothic gables are almost concealed by carvings that hang like canopies of stalactites over the porches. This eases the transition through Modernisme to the mature individualism of the four great towers named after the Apostles: from south to north, Barnabas, Simon, Thaddeus, and Matthew. Only Barnabas was completed before Gaud�’s death.