The myriad of cultural events hosted by the city has made Barcelona a top-level architectural and artistic reference: from the old Roman settlements which lie under the city to the Agbar Tower, the skyscraper designed by the architect Jean Noveau, regarded in 2004 as the best in the world that year.

Gothic charm
The medieval footprint enjoys special importance in the city centre. Gothic influences are evident all over its emblematic old district, which boasts outstanding buildings such as the Church of Santa Maria del Mar and the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia. In this neighbourhood, visitors are advised to lose themselves in the narrow streets of the historic centre of the city. However, it is the artistic movement of modernism that has afforded the city the category of world capital.

Modernist Capital
The economic boom of the end of the 19th Century and the expansion of the city beyond the old walls ran parallel to the period of splendour of this artistic movement, whose best- and worldwide-known architect is Antoni Gaudí. Year after year, the Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Família, the Güell Park, la Pedrera (Casa Milà) and Casa Batlló attract millions of visitors. The Sagrada Família is currently the most visited monument in Spain. It is estimated that about 2 million tourists visit Gaudí's unfinished work every year.

Top ten Museums
Barcelona also boasts an all-year-round cultural agenda based on internationally renowned museums whose travelling exhibitions draw from museums all over the world. The Fundació Joan Miró, for example, hosts the most comprehensive public collection of the Catalan artist Joan Miró, comprising paintings, sculptures, ceramics, textiles, etchings and drawings from all epochs. The Picasso Museum is the reference centre on the painter from Malaga's formative years. Since 1963, a collection of more than 3,800 works has constituted the permanent collection, complemented by a comprehensive schedule of temporary exhibitions. Romanesque Art is the strong point of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia (MNAC), while the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), designed by the architect from the United States Richard Meier, has been an art showcase from the second half of the 20th Century until the present day. Modern and contemporary art is also the axis around which the Fundació Tàpies revolves, located in the Eixample district, and the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), located in the neighbourhood of El Raval.