The Clock tower at Barcelona Port, located at the Fishermen Warf, celebrates its birthday with an exhibition and a series of events to make its history known to the public. The celebration it will coincide with its reform. The works will start this year to guarantee the future development of the fishing industry as well as to open these spaces to the citizens. 

The new lighthouse began operations in 1772. It was of neoclassical style and consisted of a square base, a truncated pyramidal tower and the lantern located at the top of the building. In 1852, the lantern was replaced by a clock with four large dials to indicate the time to navigators, dock workers and neighbours. It was used by the French Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre (mathematician and astronomer) and Pierre Méchain (geographer and astronomer) to measure the longitude of the meridian arc from Dunkirk to Barcelona, results that were used to establish the decimal metric system. 

Later, the civil engineer, Ildefonso Cerdà, took it as a reference to design the avenues of Paralelo and Meridiana in his Plan of Reform and Eixample of Barcelona in 1859.

“One of the Port’s tasks is to preserve the port’s heritage because it belongs to all of us”.

Damià Calvet, President of the Port de Barcelona