Poble Español, a city museum in the very heart of Barcelona

Spain is a country full of history, wonderful places to visit and explore, great cities like Madrid and Barcelona, and little Spanish villages and towns with centuries of history as well. From Andalusia to País Vasco, from Galicia to the Baleares, you can appreciate really different traditions, cultures, and architecture as well, since Spain through the centuries has been influenced by many different populations like Arabic and even South American ones.

So, if you love Spain culture or you are interested in architecture as well, you would be surprised to know that you can find the entire Spain in an only village, in the very centre of Barcelona: its name is Poble Español.

Poble Español is an architectural museum that contains a selection of buildings from different parts of the Peninsula. It is situated in the very heart of Barcelona, near Plaza de España and the incredible Fountains of Montjuïc, and it was concieved for visitors to enjoy an open-air Spanish architectural museum while walking around its squares, gardens and streets. The most amazing thing is that, in fact, in order to reproduce different places and Spanish areas, the Poble Español with its 117 full-scale buildings creates a real suggestive village, with its own houses, parks, theaters, school, artisan workshops and restaurants.

It was built in 1929, for the Barcelona International Exposition as a synthesis of Spain's architecture and culture by the architects Puig Cadafalch, Francesc Folguera and Ramon Reventos, the art critic Miquel Utrillo, and the painter Xavier Nogués. After many trips around Spain to collect the iconographic material which they needed, hundreds of photos, notes and drawings, the team was able to build a complex synthesis of cultural and architectural essence of Spain.

The museum contains 117 buildings of 15 different autonomous communities of Spain: Andalucia, Aragón, Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla, Castilla y León, Cataluña, Valencia, Extremadura, Galicia, Islas Baleares, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra and País Vasco.

Poble Español isn't just an architectural museum, it mixes architecture with contemporary art, crafts and gastronomy. The museum Fran Daurel for example, inside the village, is in fact one of the most beautiful museums in Barcelona, where you can appreciate more than 250 works between paintings, sculptures, drawings and ceramics from some of the most important contemporary artists of all time like Picasso, Dalí and Miró.

So, if you are in Barcelona I really advise you to visit this wonderful open air museum. You can find further information on Poble Español's website. Enjoy!