The year 2012 marked one hundred and thirty years since the inauguration of the Torre de les Aigües del Besòs, a business initiative carried out at the end of the 19th century, with the purpose of taking advantage of the underground flow of the Besòs river.
The result did not meet the expectations of the promoters, the company failed and this concluded with the not entirely clarified death of one of its promoters. However, we have been left with a magnificent masonry tower that is part of the collective imagination of Poblenou.
The original project by the architect Pere Falqués (then municipal architect of Sant Martí de Provençals), provided for a tower with a height of 80 meters and two tanks, one at 40 meters and the other at 80 meters. The water, driven by the pumps installed in the Casa de les Válvules, penetrated through a short gallery and went up through the central eye of the tower until it reached the top of the tank, where it poured into the inside the tank.
Finally, on Wednesday, June 21, 1882, the great day of the inauguration arrived. The Torre de les Aigües is not finished yet, and it had a height of 51 meters - this is how it has reached us today - established up to the first tank of 600 m3.