A young university

The UPF, which began life in 1990, spreads its teaching over three campuses, including that of Ciutadella, which is focused on the social sciences and humanities.

Located in the Vila Olímpica neighbourhood, next to Ciutadella Park and Barcelona Zoo, it was set up in this area as a result of the urban regeneration that came to the city in the wake of the Olympic Games, and breathed new life into three historical buildings that had fallen into disuse.

dings with history

Two of these three buildings, known as Jaume I and Roger de Llúria, owe their origin to the military barracks constructed in 1887. The third, the Dipòsit de les Aigües, had been built some years before and inaugurated in 1880 to regulate the flow of water to the waterfall in Ciutadella park and irrigate the gardens. Designed by architect Josep Fontserè the construction is identical to a Roman prototype, comprising a maze of 14-metre-high parallel arches, which intersect in a barrel vault and spread out with a mirror effect along its 65 metres. Antoni Gaudí, then a young architecture student, contributed to the project by doing the calculations for the support elements. Today, transformed into the UPF’s General Library, the Dipòsit de les Aigües offers impressive reading rooms where students can consult the entire catalogue, and which includes, among other things, the collections from the Haas Library, Barcelona’s Chamber of Commerce, and the Jaume Vicens Vives University Institute of History, which is also located in this building.