City Council, Generalitat and Fira launched a few weeks ago the commission that must organize the celebrations of the centenary of the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1929. In addition to taking advantage of the occasion to improve the Fira’s facilities on Maria Cristina Avenue, it will also be the opportunity to pay tribute to the event, which has not enjoyed the historical recognition that the Universal Exhibition of 1888 has had, which was the city’s first great international showcase.
The exhibition arrived late, even though it began to be organized in 1905. World War I and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera forced it to be delayed, and its celebration also coincided with the global economic crisis of the crash of ’29, which had an impact on its financial impact and attendance. The delay forced a certain twist to the story, since from the beginning it was designed to publicize the latest advances in electricity, but in 1929 the novelty had already become somewhat obsolete. It cost 130 million pesetas at the time and ended up being an economic failure, leaving a deficit of 180 million. It even put the celebration of the 1992 Olympic Games in crisis, due to the scare that the team that began preparing them in the 1980s had when it became aware that the 1929 debt was still being paid. I was in the municipal plenary session that, in the nineties, reported the payment of the last installment of the bill for the International Exhibition.
However, the economic failure was offset by social success and the associated great transformation that Barcelona experienced. Thanks to the exhibition, Montjuïc mountain was urbanized and Barcelonans filled the grounds and pavilions. One of the big attractions were the escalators. Saving the distance, the transformation in the city was as important as the Olympic one. And, associated with the exhibition, Via Laietana was opened, which was populated with emblematic corporate buildings, such as those of Correos, Transmediterránea or the Banco Hispano Colonial. It also coincided with the launch, three years earlier, of the first two metro lines, the Transversal (today line 1) and the Gran Metro, from which today’s lines 3 and 4 were born, in addition to actions such as the monumentalization of Plaza Catalunya and the urbanization of Plaza Espanya.
The exhibition also left an important architectural legacy in Montjuïc, which includes the buildings of the Palau Nacional, current headquarters of the MNAC, the Teatre Grec, the Poble Espanyol, the Font Màgica and the headquarters of the Institut Cartogràfic, which was the pavilion of the Caixa during the event. There are other buildings, such as the Casa de Premsa, which has been forgotten for years and is scheduled to reopen as a library for the centenary.
In conclusion, it will be a good time to claim the 29th, a great pending issue for Barcelona.
