Modernisme and Noucentisme were not antithetical. One came after the other. In fact, Modernisme differs from Jugendstil and Art Deco essentially by virtue of the place where it developed: Barcelona. The city would not have been possible without the noucentistes unifying idea, a notion that was unknown to the modernistes before them. The Noucentista ideology was capable of embracing in its overall cultural and political project the multifaceted and fragmentary whole of Modernisme.

The approximately five hundred sculptures within the reach of passers-by lie on the border between art and stage settings, culture and city. Although the main twentieth-century movements and artists are represented in different works, Barcelona has not been conceived as an open-air sculpture museum, despite resembling one. Instead, it has endeavoured to receive art in a vivacious project that allows us to define it as a plastic city.