Castell de Montjuïc presents “El funicular de Montjuïc. La conquesta de la muntanya” (The Montjuïc funicular. Conquering the mountain), an exhibition that takes you on a journey through the history of this funicular train, built to make access easier from the centre of Barcelona to Montjuïc mountain, a place of leisure for the Barcelonians.
The exhibition is shown in room 20 of Castell de Montjuïc, set up like the interior of a funicular, with its different compartments, windows and benches. The narrative is distributed over seven areas that present the context in which the proposal was created, the details of the project and its construction, its early years, the post-war era and the Franco regime, its development under democracy and renovation for the Barcelona Olympic Games, and it includes an immersive experience that shows the route of the funicular today.
Its story began with the modernisation of Barcelona during the Noucentisme Cultural period, when the urban development and landscaping of Montjuïc mountain was planned and the funicular was conceived as a means of leisure transport to get there. The lawyer Elies Rogent Massó and his family, who had already been involved in promoting the Sant Joan de Montserrat funicular, planned its construction in view of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.
Over the last century, the funicular has undergone periods of success and decline. With the arrival of democracy in the eighties, the company Transports Municipals de Barcelona (now called Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona - TMB), which managed the funicular as a municipal transport, decided to preserve it for its historical and sentimental value, maintaining the first section between Avinguda del Paral·lel and Avinguda de Miramar. In 1991 it was given a complete renovation and became the main transport during the Olympic Games for accessing the sporting facilities of Montjuïc.
