Going towards the Montjuic Hill, the next site is the Caixa Forum, a cultural center which gives space mostly to modern arts. The pueblo espanol, the Spanish village was built by Miguel Utrillo and Xavier Nargues with the purpose of letting visitors of the 1929 world fair learn about the architecture of Spain without leaving Barcelona. Vajda-Hunyad Castle of Budapest was built for similar reasons. Neither of them is an open air museum since these are not original buildings from different parts of the country but copies of the most general ones. The buildings are not built in their original proportions. The building materials like stone, brick, tile, wood however, are from the place of origin. The main entrance is a copy of the Saint Vincent Gate of Avila. Squares and streets change as the province changes. One can see the characteristic buildings and squares of Castile, Galizia, Aragon, Catalonia, Andalucia, Basque Country, and Extremadura.
In their workshops, glassblowers, blacksmiths, woodcarvers, goldsmiths, carpet makers and confectioners prepare their goods in front of tourists. The national museum of applied arts shows visitors the old tools of agriculture, hunting, fishing and pastoral duties. During the summer, at the entrance of the village, mounted policemen are having regular ceremonies. Laslo Huba writes the following in his diary. This is a sort of summary of Spain which was established especially for tourists. All areas of Espana represent themselves, palaces, styles as well as products and clothing. The pueblo espanol was made for the world fair but it’s been in use ever since.
The towered building of the museum of Catalonian arts opened its doors to visitors in 1934. The monumental gallery is a real maze and has 34 halls with pictures placed mostly in chronological order. The frescoes of the antechamber were painted the Tagores and Hander. In the first six halls, there are Roman dia frescoes and fragments originating from the Catalonian land. The most valuable piece is the fresco of the abscess of the St. Clement chapel which was sanctified in 1123 called Christ Pantokator. The author is unknown. The value is inestimable. The secular pieces from the last two halls are from the palaces of the nobles of Barcelona. The sights of the first floor are the throne room and tea salon ornamented by baroque stuccos. As a real Spanish specialty, it’s worth it to take a look at the Azulejos exhibition. Part of the painted tiles surfaced during an excavation.
A famous side of the city is the fuente luminosa, the illuminated fountain where pumps push 2430 liters of water in the air every minute to be sprayed by fans. The water is lit by 4730 lamps with 10 colored filters on every one of them. The fountain was built for the 1929 world fair by engineer Carlos Buigas. Of course today, the whole mechanism is controlled electronically. From the stairs of the museum, not only the fountain and the two pillars formerly serving as the entrance of the world fair could be seen but the whole Sagrada Familia district with the famous cathedral in the center. The Olympic swimming pool where the swimming, water polo and diving events were held was built into the mountain in a terraced way. Nowadays, tourists marvel at the panorama of the city from the pool.
The barceloneta is a triangular area surrounded by the harbor and beaches which exists thanks to an order by Philip V at the beginning of the 1700s. Up to this day, mostly fishermen and sailors lived here with their families. Carlos Buigas, the designer of the illuminated fountain wanted to connect this romantic district with the Montjuic Hill. The plan was accomplished only two years after the 1928 world fair. The suspended rail called teleferico starts from the barceloneta district and finishes its journey after 1300m in Miramar Park on the Montjuic Hill. The height of the starting point is 80m while the middle station is located at 107m. There’s also a rail on the Montjuic which departs from nearby Miramar Park and goes above the star shaped military history museum.