Plaça d'Espanya & the Venetian Towers
Why is it significant?
Stop between the two brick towers and turn round to face the roundabout you just crossed, with its huge fountain of stone figures in the middle.
Key Facts
| Place | Plaça d'Espanya & the Venetian Towers |
|---|---|
| Address | Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, 08004 Barcelona, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.37410, 2.15000 |
| Part of Walk | Montjuïc, the Hill of Big Dreams: Barcelona's 1929 Expo, Olympic Ring & Castle |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop between the two brick towers and turn round to face the roundabout you just crossed, with its huge fountain of stone figures in the middle. Then turn back again and look up the avenue: a straight line of light poles, exhibition halls and fountains running all the way to a domed palace on the hill.
These twin towers are the Torres Venecianes, about 47 metres tall, and if they look Italian, that is because they are copies. The architect Ramon Reventós modelled them on the bell tower of Saint Mark's in Venice. They were never meant to hold bells. They were a gate, the ceremonial entrance to the International Exposition of 1929, the event that turned this whole hillside from quarries, shacks and vegetable plots into the park you are about to climb.
The Exposition took a very long time to arrive. It was first planned for 1917 as a show of the electrical industries, with Josep Puig i Cadafalch, one of the great modernista architects, drawing up the plan for the site. Then came the First World War, delays, and in 1923 the coup of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. The dictator distrusted Catalan nationalists, Puig among them, and the project was taken out of his hands and given a grander, more Spanish flavour.
When King Alfonso XIII finally opened it in May 1929, Barcelona put on a show the world had rarely seen. Millions of visitors came to walk this avenue, the Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina, at night, when water and coloured light did things nobody had engineered before. The halls along both sides are still the city's trade fair grounds, and big congresses still fill them every year.
The fountain behind you in the middle of Plaça d'Espanya has a famous name attached: its design is by Josep Maria Jujol, Gaudí's most gifted collaborator, though the sculptures are by other hands. Few drivers circling it ever notice. Now walk up the avenue and bear right at the end, towards a red-brick factory with two slim towers.