On January 27, 2006, Barcelona City Council declares the will "to launch actions aimed at recovering the historical memory of the "Four Columns" monument by Puig i Cadafalch in the city of Barcelona, either in Montjuïc, or in a location that guarantees its symbolic value", in accordance with the non-law proposal approved by the Parliament of Catalonia on April 22, 2005.
This project responds to the last phase of the execution of this mandate by collecting the executive project for the reconstruction of the 4 columns of Montjuïc and the urbanisation of the public space around it.
This building is located in Plaça Marquès de la Foronda, on its axis, and very close to the waterfalls belonging to the water axis topped by the Magic Fountain. The surface on which it is planned to intervene is 844.82 m2.
Once the final location for the columns is chosen, three final topics appear:
- The exact place where to locate them. There are two conditions that could determine this.
. The presence of the balustrade and the service galleries of the fountains that follow it on the side of the waterfall. Affecting the gallery had an economic and technical repercussion that had to be avoided, on the other hand, although the initial intention was to bring the column as close as possible to the slope of the waterfall (as they were originally placed to be seen with maximum integrity from all points of view), the fact of intervening by demolishing them and affecting the glasses that finish it off is not advisable.
. The future presence of the Fira station on the L2 metro. This is a drafted project but with no planned date for the start of the works. The screen walls that the station project envisages were initially the limit that should not be invaded. Finally, having rejected the impact on the balustrades and ornamental elements of the waterfall, it has been necessary to withdraw the position of the columns to the screens of the station affecting the folds that they provide.
- The geometric definition of the column. The starting point was the determination of the column’s height. In this sense, the level of the finishing balustrade on the roof of the highest palace has been taken as a reference. Once the height has been defined, the formalisation of the column has been done according to the classical canons defined by Vignola from the module of the column - a module is equivalent to 1/12 part of the column’s height - the space between the columns has been adjusted according to the same proportion that Puig i Cadafalch once proposed, slightly narrower than the classical canon, but more favorable to the proportions of the symbol to be represented. The columns are made of artificial stone, raised in successive load-bearing drums and post-tensioned. The foundation is solved with micropiles. The roof of the column, of 5.2 m2 each, plans to collect rainwater and channel it internally to a drain in order to prevent uncontrolled runoff.
- Its arrival on the ground. It is conceived as an open space, accessible and not segregated from the rest of the square. The transition between the asphalt and the artificial stone of the column is made through a pavement and a worked geometry. The need to remove rainwater runoff from the foot of the columns raises a curved pavement that covers a rectangle bounded by the stairs and the traces proposed for the arrangement of the square. The curvature takes the highest point under the axis of the columns. Laterally there is a decreasing step which, on reaching the balustrade and on the opposite side, becomes zero in height; linear interceptors of low appearance are proposed at these points. The material that solved this pavement is the red sandstone Figaró, a 40x40x7 format with a soft finish, which welcomes the arrival of the columns as a grid. It is in this pavement where the commemorative plaque is expected to be placed, which is expected to be made of natural stone, the sandy Montjuïc type lowered according to the defined text and typography and finished with brass sheet left flat on the stone. To prevent vehicles and lorries linked to the Fair from damaging and polluting this base, ropes of the same size and material as those of the pavement have been set up.