Castell de Montjuïc, Barcelona

Castell de Montjuïc is a military fortress that now serves as a municipal facility. It occupies the summit of Montjuïc, on a rocky terrace more than 170 metres above the city. The form you see belongs largely to the military engineer Juan Martín Cermeño, who rebuilt the earlier fort and reshaped the defences according to systems associated with the French engineer Vauban.

The stronghold spreads in a star-shaped arrangement, with bastions and outer works guarding an enclosed core and a deep ditch running around it. Look at the main body of the castle: its rooms gather around a columned courtyard, and their ceilings use curved masonry vaults. This site has carried a heavy history.

It became a prison for political and social repression, and the trials of anarchists held here became notorious for torture. Lluís Companys, president of Catalonia's Generalitat, was imprisoned, tried and executed here in 1940. After its military-prison period, the castle became a military museum, and it now functions as a civic space devoted to memory, peace and cultural activity.