高迪知道自己看不到圣家堂完工。他去世一百年后的今年，它封顶了，成为全世界最高的教堂。

This year, a church that had been under construction for one hundred and forty-four years was topped out.

It is in Barcelona, it is called the Sagrada Família, and it was designed by the architect Gaudí.

He took it over in 1883 at thirty-one, and worked on it until his death — a full forty-three years.

For the last twelve years he turned down all other work, did only this, and eventually moved onto the site to live.

He was entirely clear about one thing: this church, he would not live to see finished.

When people complained about the pace, he left behind a line that has been quoted ever since: my client is not in a hurry.

The client he meant was the one above.

His method is worth a mention.

He did not look for shapes in architectural history. He hung ropes upside down with weights on them, let gravity itself find the most efficient curve, and then looked at the photograph the other way up.

An upside-down rope, inverted, is an arch that will stand.

This is structural calculation — he simply used string instead of formulae.

In June 1926, walking on a street in Barcelona, he was knocked down by a tram.

He was dressed shabbily that day and carried no papers.

Passers-by took him for a beggar, cabs would not take him, and he was sent to a hospital for the poor.

Only the next day did anyone recognise him.

Three days later he died, and he is buried in the crypt of this same church.

The church was of course unfinished, and those who came after kept building upward from his drawings.

This February, the last section of the cross was fitted onto the highest tower.

The tower is one hundred and seventy-two and a half metres, which makes the Sagrada Família the tallest church in the world.

Why stop at that height?

Because the Montjuïc hill beside it is one hundred and seventy-seven metres.

Gaudí’s rule was that what man makes should not stand higher than what God made.

So he kept the tower below the hill, four and a half metres short — and those four and a half metres are deliberate.

On the tenth of June this year, the Pope presided over the tower’s inauguration.

That day was exactly one hundred years after Gaudí’s death.

One man started it, and a hundred years later other people finished it for him.

Think about it: something whose result you will never see — would you start?