Watch live: Sagrada Família’s Virgin Mary tower lights up for the first time
The event, featuring an initial mass and then a lighting ceremony, kicks off on Wednesday evening around 6 pm
From Wednesday night, December 8, the skyline of Barcelona will get a bright, new addition.
The star sitting atop the tower of the Virgin Mary of the Sagrada Família will be lit up for the first time on Wednesday night.
This will be the second tallest tower of the whole basilica at 138 metres high, although construction of the tallest, dedicated to Jesus Christ, is not yet complete.
A live stream for the first lighting of the 5.5-tonne 12-point star can be watched here.
The Virgin Mary tower was crowned with the star on November 29.
Made of textured glass and stainless steel, the weatherproof 12-point star is 7.5 meters long and now crowns the ninth tower that has been built of the 18 envisioned by Gaudí.
Although the art nouveau masterpiece was initially supposed to be completed in 2026, a hundred years after Gaudí's death, construction came to a halt at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, delaying these plans.
Gradual lighting of the tower
People all over the world have been invited to symbolically participate in the tower's illumination by sending in their digital flashes of light through the Sagrada Familia and Archdiocese websites.
The base of the tower will be lit up on December 4, from 8 pm to 11 pm CET, while lights will turn on in the shaft at the same time two days later before the star is turned on on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, following a mass officiated by Cardinal Joan Josep Omella i Omella and the blessing of the tower.
There are no longer any tickets available to attend in person, but the event will be streamed online.
Other celebratory activities with local organizations and neighborhood groups, such as traditional Sardana dances, human towers, and Christmas caroling, will take place until January 5, the day before Three Kings' Day.
There will also be a photo exhibition inside the basilica, while the architect behind the works on the Virgin Mary, Jordi Faulí, will give a talk on the latest developments.