Arc de Triomf: A Triumphal Arch Without a War

Why is it significant?

Stand under the great red-brick arch and look up at the stone frieze across its top: a woman seated on a throne, surrounded by figures who seem to be arriving from far away with gifts.

Key Facts

Listen · 2:26

Stand under the great red-brick arch and look up at the stone frieze across its top: a woman seated on a throne, surrounded by figures who seem to be arriving from far away with gifts. Then look down the long promenade in front of you, with its palm trees and old lamp posts, running straight towards a park. Most triumphal arches celebrate a victory. Rome built them for emperors who had crushed somebody. Barcelona's has no war behind it at all. It was built by the architect Josep Vilaseca as the main gateway to the Universal Exposition of 1888, the first world's fair ever held in Spain. The frieze on this side, by the sculptor Josep Reynés, shows Barcelona welcoming the nations. The triumph it celebrates is a city's ambition. And notice the material. Not marble, not white stone, but brick, laid in patterns that echo the Moorish-inspired buildings of medieval Spain. In the 1880s this was a statement: a modern industrial city building its monuments out of the humble material of its own factories, and finding beauty in it. It is one of the first signs of what would become Catalan Modernisme. The exposition was organised at astonishing speed, pushed by the mayor Francesc de Paula Rius i Taulet, and it opened in May 1888 on land that, only twenty years earlier, had been a hated military fortress. The promenade below you now bears the name of Lluís Companys, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, who was executed in 1940 after the Civil War. On your left, the heavy palace with towers is the Palau de Justícia, the law courts, begun in the same years. This whole walk follows one idea: Barcelona reinventing itself on the ruins of what came before, first a fortress turned into a fair, then factories turned into a district of ideas. Walk down Passeig de Lluís Companys towards the park gates, and look for a strange red castle on your right, just inside the railings.