One of Barcelona's most spectacular and popular modern attractions is the Magic Fountain of Montjuic, which pulses water as high as 170 feet in the air through 3,620 jets, accompanied by music and colored lights.
Like so much else in Barcelona, its story is not only artistic, but political. It was built for the city's 1929 worlds fair, along with the palatial National Museum of Art above it—but it was built on the spot where, a year before, Spain's then-dictator Primo de Rivera had ordered the destruction of the Four Columns, a monument to Catalan nationalism.
A big hit at the fair, they continued to put on shows until heavily damaged in the late 1930s during the Spanish Civil War. The fountain was out of service until 1955, when the original designer, Carles Buigas, returned to supervise the renovation.
The musical component was added in the 1980s, and includes a wide variety of genres to please the crowds that gather nightly, looking for the best seats on the steps of the museum or in the plaza below the fountain.
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