People flock to the city's most central green lung for a stroll, a picnic, a boat ride on the lake, a yoga class or a prebooked tour of Catalonia’s Palau del Parlament de Catalunya, and to marvel at the swirling 19th-century Cascada in which Gaudí had a hand. After the War of the Spanish Succession, Felipe V razed a swath of La Ribera to build the Ciutadella fortress, designed to keep watch over Barcelona. Only in 1869 did the central government allow its demolition; the site was turned into a park and adapted for Barcelona's 1888 Universal Exposition by Josep Fontserè, with Josep Vilaseca's Mudéjar-style Arc de Triomf added in 1888.
The monumental waterfall near the Passeig de Pujades park entrance, was created between 1875 and 1881 by Fontserè with the help of an enthusiastic young Gaudí. The bandstand opposite commemorates Sonia Rescalvo Zafra, a trans performer murdered here in 1991 by a group of Neo-Nazis. The western side of the park is lined with several buildings constructed for, or just before, the Universal Exhibition, including Domènech i Montaner's medieval-looking Castell dels Tres Dragons, the elaborate greenhouse L'Hivernacle greenhouse (under restoration at research time), the Museu Martorell (natural sciences) and a palm house (L'Umbracle).
