Tour · Barcellona · Basilica
Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar
A breathtaking fourteenth-century church in El Born, the purest example of Catalan Gothic, built in record time by the port district's own labourers and famed for its soaring, luminous interior.
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Santa Maria del Mar, Saint Mary of the Sea, is widely considered the most beautiful church in Barcelona and the finest example of pure Catalan Gothic architecture. It was built astonishingly quickly for a medieval cathedral, between 1329 and 1383, which gives it a rare unity of style. It was raised in the Ribera district by the people of the port, the merchants, sailors and labourers whose stevedores, the bastaixos, famously carried the great stones from the royal quarry on their own backs down to the building site. Inside, the effect is unforgettable: slender octagonal columns, set unusually far apart, rise to a high vault, flooding the space with light and a sense of soaring space found nowhere else. Stripped of much of its baroque clutter by a fire in 1936, the interior today has a stark, luminous purity. The church was immortalised in the bestselling novel Cathedral of the Sea.
Fatti principali
- 1329 year — Construction began; the church was completed in just 54 years, remarkably fast for the age
- 1383 year — The basilica was finished, giving it a rare unity of pure Catalan Gothic style
- 16 metres — The unusually wide spacing between the columns, creating its sense of airy space
📍 Carrer dels Sombrerers 2, 08003, Barcelona