Today it is a square table made of black marble, very deteriorated, protected by a small circular iron fence in a corner of Ciutadella Park. But 137 years ago, it was one of the scientific attractions of the park conceived by Josep Fontseré in the place that had been occupied by the hated fortress built by Felipe V after the defeat of 1714. There you could see, carved into the surface, the distances that separate Barcelona of the great cities of the world. Today only a few are read.
The table of distances occupies what is known as the scientific corner of the Ciutadella, between the park entrance closest to the França station and the Umbracle. It was one of the contributions to the park by the historian and meteorologist Josep Ricart i Giralt, also a professor of spherical mathematics at the Nautical School. His other contribution was the meteorological column, very close to the table, also deteriorated and devoid of the elements and gadgets, such as a weather vane, that adorned it for a long time.
Both elements were part of the scientific vocation with which the park was born. The meteorological column and the distance table were installed in 1884, shortly before the venue hosted the 1888 Universal Exhibition, Barcelona's first major letter of introduction to the world. The table had in the center Barcelona, and surrounding it radially, the names of the main capitals of the world and the distance in kilometers that separate us from them.
Thus, not without difficulty, cities such as Buenos Aires, Berlin, Copenhagen, Manila, Santiago de Chile, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Stockholm, Paris and Beijing, among others, can still be read, despite wear and tear.
Both the table and the column sought to disseminate knowledge to which the working class did not have access. Fontseré i Ricart thought that doing it through attractive monuments favored that work. Unfortunately, the lack of maintenance for more than a century has turned them into curious elements in a corner of the park of which few know their origin and the function they had.
