he grew bolder, designing a catenary arch on top that held weight in a novel way. An architect on Faulí’s team joked that this arch was a bit of chulería —a word meaning “peacocking.” It was Gaudí’s way of announcing that he was building something revolutionary.

“After flattery usually comes deceit,”

On June 7, 1926, after Gaudí’s workday ended, he set out toward a church in the Gothic Quarter where he liked to say evening prayers. “ He was always thinking about the Sagrada Família when he was walking,” Faulí told me. As Gaudí crossed a street, he saw a tram coming—and, as Faulí tells the story, he threw himself backward only to have “another... See more