The article misses an important bit of info: when the construction started, the Sagrada Familia was not in Barcelona, but in an independent municipality, Sant Martí de Provençals. It was to this municipality that the building permit was requested, not to Barcelona, which would annex the municipality and with it, the Sagrada Familia, 15 years later. Plus, most of the documentation regarding the building, including plans, scale models etc. were destroyed in a fire caused by anarchists when the Civil War started. The story is more complex than just incompetent bureaucracy.
I was very impressed when I visited the museum under the Sagrada Familia and saw photos of the beginning of construction, when the church was in the middle of large hay fields with no buildings around. Now it's nearly in the middle of the city!
We should remember that this was more than 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time. A lot of our collective subconscious is still acting like we’re stuck in 1982, but the XX century is long over.
Sagrada Familia looks like an amalgamation of Spanish culture, its incomplete nature acts like an amalgamation of Spanish culture, and your story only reinforces that
It doesn't matter how it got there, that history IS Spanish culture and it doesn't make anyone sympathetic to the outcome.
