Democratic Memorial

At one end of the Roger de Llúria patio is the Memorial in tribute to the nearly one hundred and twenty Catalan university professors subjected to reprisals by the Franco dictatorship in 1939. These included Pompeu Fabra himself. The monument consists of a large circular glass box, four metres in diameter, which reproduces the name of the honoured academics. As if it were the hand of a clock, a permanent ray of light illuminates each name successively. A few days after the Francoist occupation of Barcelona in January 1939, the new authorities abolished the Autonomous University, created by the Republicans six years earlier. The memorial was inaugurated by rector Argullol in April 2001, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the second Republic.