Work begins at the weekend to install a third new tower crane for the ongoing construction of the Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudi’s extraordinary ‘organic’ cathedral in Barcelona, Spain.
The French Potain MD 285B crane is scheduled for erection on 11 and 12 March Concrete for the plinth was being poured for it last week using an existing Potain MC 65 which arrived on the site two years ago to join a larger MD 235 working at the top of the construction with a highest working point of 130m.
The three cranes are being used in construction of flooring inside the cathedral, as well as for the astonishing range of towers that the building will have.
Construction began on the project 119 years ago, in 1882. Gaudi, who died in 1926, conceived three facades each with four towers reaching about 90m high, with four higher towers around a central dome. A final high tower will reach 177m.
Architect Jordi Bonet has been working on the scheme since 1987 and pushing ahead controversially with the second facade, completed in 1998. It has a thoroughly different feel from the Gaudi facade. Work on the ‘stone forest’ nave and the central four towers and tower dome is now under way, using the very tall Potain crane.
A single older Richer tower crane which has stood at the site for 35 years is also to be replaced with a Potain, probably later this spring.
