It is incredibly rare for a large cathedral to be completed just like the original architect envisioned it, without any compromises made along the way*. It may even be said that a large cathedral is never finished - all the large cathedrals have a standing team of builders, usually with a tradition going back to the middle ages, and require constant maintenance work. "Finished" is thus a difficult term for such a building. But if major construction will stop in 2026, with the building no longer having any obvious large missing parts, I am totally fine with calling it "finished", even if the original plans were different. My understanding is that they already deviated from the original plans decades ago.
* I think Cologne cathedral was completed more or less according to the original plan, but only because historism was en vogue and they found the original medieval plans by chance in the 19th century. Strasbourg cathedral is a good example for a cathedral which doesn't look at all like the original architect envisioned it, with a long history of re-planning and some aesthetically botched construction works.
> My understanding is that they already deviated from the original plans decades ago.
Yes, a lot of models and plans Gaudi created for Sagrada Familia were incomplete when he died. It didn't help either that his studio(s) were ransacked during the civil war, so even if he had a 100% vision, the war would ensure those plans didn't survive.
It is incredibly rare for a large cathedral to be completed just like the original architect envisioned it, without any compromises made along the way*. It may even be said that a large cathedral is never finished - all the large cathedrals have a standing team of builders, usually with a tradition going back to the middle ages, and require constant maintenance work. "Finished" is thus a difficult term for such a building. But if major construction will stop in 2026, with the building no longer having any obvious large missing parts, I am totally fine with calling it "finished", even if the original plans were different. My understanding is that they already deviated from the original plans decades ago.
* I think Cologne cathedral was completed more or less according to the original plan, but only because historism was en vogue and they found the original medieval plans by chance in the 19th century. Strasbourg cathedral is a good example for a cathedral which doesn't look at all like the original architect envisioned it, with a long history of re-planning and some aesthetically botched construction works.