Les Quatre Columnes

In Les Quatre Columnes once stood four Ionic columns that ordinary visitors to Montjuïc could not miss—because they were designed to become public icons. They were created in 1919 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, and they rose where the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc now occupies the same ground. Their purpose was political as much as architectural: they symbolized the four stripes of the Catalan senyera, and they were meant to project Catalanism into everyday sightlines.

Four stripes, set in stone

Puig i Cadafalch’s columns were not abstract decoration. They were conceived as a recognizable emblem for Catalan identity, intended to stand at a high-profile public setting—exactly the kind of place where people would pass, pause, and repeat the image without needing a lecture. Their proposed prominence helps explain why they became targets.

The 1928 removal

In 1928, during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, the columns were demolished. The stated logic was systematic: public Catalanist symbols were removed so they would not be noticed during the 1929 Universal Exposition, planned for Montjuïc. In other words, the regime’s problem wasn’t the columns’ craftsmanship—it was what the columns meant to crowds. After all, a symbol that stands in a mass-visited landscape can’t stay private.