Plaque laid on Gran Via to honor Antoni Gaudí's death

100 years ago Antoni Gaudí was fatally run over by a tram. Now the city of Barcelona has paid tribute to him at the spot with the installation of a plaque. 

The addition of the plaque on the Barcelona streets is another inclusion to the Gaudí Year and kicks off an important week for Catalonia with Pope Leo XIV's visit.

The pope will be blessing the newest addition to Gaudí's life work, the Tower of Jesus on the Sagrada Familia. He will also be holding a mass to commemorate Gaudí, on the same day Gaudí's fatal injuries claimed his life 100 years ago. 

June 7, 1926, Gaudí was walking along the road between Bailèn and Girona streets when he was hit by a line 30 tram running between Arc de Triomf and Plaça Catalunya. 

At 73, Gaudí had old clothes, a beard and long hair. It is said that passers-by thought he was homeless and pretended not to see him.

Eventually a police officer had a taxi take him to Santa Creu hospital. But after three days, with his injuries being too severe and the highly limited care at the time, the architect died from his wounds. 

He has been buried at the Crypt of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia since that day in 1926. 

100 years later, on June 7, around 150 people gathered at the fatal point on Gran Via to commemorate his legacy. 

A popular dance group based near the Sagrada Familia, Esbart Gaudí, helped make the event a celebration with dance performances and readings of news clippings about the architect's death. 

The plaque itself contains an inscription that reads "On the centenary of the death of Antoni Gaudí. On June 7 1926, a tram ran over the architect Antoni Gaudí at this point on Gran Via. Three days later, he died in the Santa Creu hospital."

Galdric Santana, the curator of the Gaudí Year, explains that Gaudí was "a victim of his control of vanity, he was a character who did not need to show off or boast."

"To the point that at the time of his death he went strictly unnoticed," he added.