final decoration. As a result, the interior comprises iron housing, filled with concrete to one side, and the other treated with decorative plaster work. For the lobby, stairs and basement, the so-called ‘Catalan Vault’ was used, consisting of flat-laid brick work. Amongst the pieces of artificial stone made on-site are sixteen columns supporting the dome, each of one meter in diameter and ten in height, and hollow in structure. Each column is made from a singular piece of artificial stone. The structure of the Great Hall measures 46 x 74 meters with a height of 70 meters. On the 30th of June 1926 the first stone of the construction was placed, an occasion marked by diverse authorities including the president of the executive committee of the Exhibition, Mariano de Foronda, the mayor of Barcelona Darius Rumeu i Freixa, and the director of construction Pere Domènech i Roura. Architecture The design of the National Palace is a unified style of Spanish Renaissance architecture with an air of academic classicism. It is the result of different functional forms and construction procedures, resolved by a technical language attributed to the Barcelona School of Architecture. The construction of the Palace consists of the combination of traditional systems based on symmetry, as clearly outlined in its composition and, that of the building procedure dominated by more modern techniques and materials such as the use of concrete. The building has two floors: one base or ground floor and another main floor which holds double pilasters, marking the great blind wall panels. At the north-eastern part of the structure lies a subterranean space, which at the moment of construction was destined for the installation of kitchens. There was also a set of rooms constructed: the Throne Room, rooms for the King and Queen and, to the front of the building, the museum section. To the back of the building an area for events was created, with a small tea room or restaurant, located in the body of space which stands behind the Great Hall. The façade consists of a central body flanked by two smaller side ones. The center topped by a large dome reminiscent of that of St. Paul's in London or that of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, with two smaller domes on each side. At the four angles corresponding to those of the Great Hall stand four towers that resemble those of the