In the late 1870s, Gaudí received a commission from the City of Barcelona to design new candelabras (lampposts) to light the streets of Barcelona.

In June 1878, Gaudí presented his plan for these lampposts. The descriptive presentation of this plan was recovered by César Martinell and published in his book in 1967.

In this text, Gaudí included a brief essay on the need in Mediterranean cities for people to spend time in the street. He also described and justified the selection of all the materials that would be used to build the lampposts.

Gaudí designed two models, one with three arms and another with six, which were ultimately placed on the Pla de Palau and in the Plaça Reial, respectively. They can still be seen there today, although for visitors who do not know that they were designed by Gaudí, they go practically unnoticed. :-)

The Gaudí & Barcelona Club offers you the opportunity to read a brief summary of Gaudí's descriptive presentation, extracted from "El Gran Gaudí," by Joan Bassegoda i Nonell, published in 1989, since Gaudí's original text takes up eight pages!

"Candelabra. Descriptive notes on the plan for group candelabras for squares and avenues in the city of Barcelona. "

"Most Excellent Sir:"

"In fulfillment of the commission that Your Excellency saw fit to entrust to me, one part of which is indispensable prior to the completion of the model, I have the honor of presenting to Your Excellency the whole of this work in the attached one-tenth scale diagram of the execution, with these supplementary notes in order to make it easy for you to have a fairly clear idea of the project from the artistic and economic perspectives, so that it can become the candelabra model that Your Excellency wanted when I was honored with the commission to study the issue. During this study I have taken into account the demanding criteria that distinguishes Your Excellency in embellishing the City of the Count [referring to Barcelona]. (...)"