Font de Canaletes ( Spanish: ''Fuente de Canaletas'') is an ornate fountain, crowned by a lamp post, in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

, in Rambla de Canaletes, the upper part of La Rambla, near

Plaça de Catalunya Plaça de Catalunya (, meaning in English language, English "Catalonia Square"; sometimes referred to as Plaza de Cataluña, its Spanish name) is a large square in central Barcelona that is generally considered to be both its city centre and the p ...

. It is a fixture of

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fans after Barça football matches since the 1930s. Tradition has that the one who drinks from the Font de Canaletes will come back to Barcelona, as the inscription on the floor suggests. The fountain is named after the northern wall of the city (dating from the 14th century), called ''Canaletes'' because of the water pipes that went through it supplying Barcelona's

old city Old City often refers to old town, the historic or original core of a city or town. Old City may refer to several places: Historical cities or regions of cities ''(by country)'' *Old City (Baku), Azerbaijan * Old City (Dhaka), Bangladesh, also ca ...

History

The original fountain from the 18th century came from a deposit located in the Torre de Sant Sever of the old medieval walls, which supplied the area of Las Ramblas and the Raval. It had a

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

that already received the name of ''Canaletes'', perhaps because of the multiple channels that from here provided to diverse fountains of the zone. With the demolition of the walls in the 19th century the old fountain disappeared, when the tower was demolished in 1862, and in its place two temporary iron fountains were installed. In 1888 the City Council of Barcelona agreed to replace it with another definitive fountain, in the whole of a project of four fountains-lampposts located in different parts of the city, a project that was commissioned to Pere Falqués. Subsequently, the project was expanded to fourteen fountains, comissionated to Jaume Rodelles. The current Font de Canaletes was built in 1892.

References

External links

History of the fountain (from UB.es).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Font De Canaletes La Rambla, Barcelona Ciutat Vella FC Barcelona Canaletes Buildings and structures in Barcelona Buildings and structures completed in 1892 1860s architecture 1860 sculptures Sculptures in Spain Iron sculptures