Sagrada familia | model makers | Albert Portoles

The gestalt and the details of this whole facade take time - as well as binoculars - to absorb. There's even a cryptogram number puzzle that Subirachs added to get attention: There are 310 ways it can add up to 33, the age of Jesus when he died. One of the figures above is homage to Gaudí himself at age 60. The Roman guards depicted have Darth Vader-like masks that are nods to the creative chimneys that Gaudí created on the rooftops of residences he designed when he wasn't working on the Sagrada Familia.

It is a feast for the eyes, and I still haven't been inside yet.

INSIDE IS A construction zone, where workers speak in Catalan, as Gaudí did. The noise can be thunderous, and there are strange smells and dust. There still is no ceiling in most places, so the weather changes the lighting and the temperature continually. It's exciting to be in the huge workshop of people trying to finish the vision of a man who died 80 years ago, a man who tried to change the spaces and impact of architecture.

I am transfixed by a Gaudí-designed stained-glass window that creates a prism-like effect of traveling shards of colored light. In a different corner, I ask one of the model makers, Albert Portoles, what it is like to work on a world masterpiece. In Catalan, he says, "You wonder if it will last like the pyramids," then he shrugs poignantly, his expression enigmatic. "But you don't know - man creates and he destroys," as the history of the building itself shows. He has worked on the Sagrada Familia for over 20 years and takes pride in showing his children his work. His partner, modeler Ignaci Badia, works in an open area where tourists can watch him craft pieces from Gaudí's scale models.