Barcelona Water Museum
Museu de les Aigues
(Cornella Pumping Station)
This new museum, opened in 2004, has been created around the old established Cornella Pumping Station and still contains one of the original Cross Compound pumping engines, the four Tandem Compound generating engines and one of the Babcock & Wilcox Boilers. The conversion appears to have been carried out regardless of expense and the buildings and engines are all in excellent condition. A new Shop/Restaurant complex has been added and one of the old reservoirs has been turned into an area for temporary exhibitions. There are some static displays in the extensive grounds, most of which are not yet open to the public. One interesting aspect is that the old flues have been made part of the exhibition and the impressive chimney can be inspected from the inside. The lingering smell of soot took me straight back to my childhood. Sadly photography is forbidden inside the buildings and this is rigorously enforced by the attendants. The following photographs are by no means comprehensive therefore, merely representing what I could take before I was spotted. The total absence of any other visitors (on a weekday morning) did not make life any easier. To be fair subsequent reading of the small print on the admission ticket revealed that flash, tripods and cinematography are banned without prior authorisation so the jobsworths were probably acting correctly if inflexibly. Next time I shall take a unipod.
Click on pictures to enlarge
The Power Hall has four Tandem Compound engines by Societe Lyonnaise of Paris (1907) driving DC generators .The guarding arrangements have a rather improvised look compared with the rest of the installation and are perhaps a recent modification. They certainly detract from the otherwise very professional presentation of the engines. The boiler house has been converted into an excellent historical display of water supply but one of the boilers, Babcock type by Hering Gmbh of Nuremburg 1907, has been retained and partly sectioned to show the construction. The surviving pumping engine, a splendid horizontal Twin Tandem Compound by Ancien Ateliers de Construction Van den Kekhove S A of Gand, remains in the still operational Engine Room and is viewed from a raised, glass enclosed platform.
The Vertical Engine by Alexander of Barcelona is displayed in a part of the grounds that is not accessible to the public but is fortunately opposite a handy gap in the hedge. This part of the grounds appears to be still in use by the water undertaking.
There is an official website at www.museudelesaigues.com , rather atmospheric but interesting.
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