Travels in Spain

Beautiful Valencia by Lizanne Wheeler

All eyes are on Valencia, Spain, vibrantly transformed by native architect Santiago Calatrava's City of Arts and Sciences. It's an extraordinary complex of futuristic buildings surrounded by shimmering water and sweeping green spaces.

Architect Frank Gehry put Spain's northern port city of Bilbao on the map when his curvaceous Guggenheim Bilbao Museum opened 10 years ago. Valencia's newfound panache extends to its port, elegantly rejuvenated to coincide with the America's Cup competition, which the city hosted in June. Befitting the jet-set yachting event, the seafront has chic restaurants, glittery hotels and broad promenades of palm trees and lavish flower beds.

Yet long before the media began trumpeting the America's Cup, Valencia's Turia Gardens attracted international attention. The project goes back to 1957, when floodwaters devastated the Ciutat Vella, the historic district, and threw the province into chaos. In an effort to avoid another such deluge, the government diverted the Turia River. Rather than turn the dry riverbed into a highway, a proposal rejected by Valencia's residents, the city made it into a public "green zone."

Architect Ricardo Bofill led the gardens' planning during the 1980s. Bofill imagined a greensward meandering through Valencia toward the sea. The former dry riverbed - a 105-square-mile expanse - comprises sports facilities, bike paths, exercise stations and lush gardens. Visitors can stroll eastward around the heart of old Valencia's serpentine streets and plazas, rich with Baroque, Romanesque, Gothic and Islamic architecture.

Here, running parallel to the riverbed, is the 19th century Alameda, a leafy, Moorish-inspired walkway. In contrast, a series of evocative bridges define the newly landscaped Turia spaces, unfolding as you amble toward the site of the City of Arts and Sciences.

Approaching Exposition Bridge, you'll observe its startlingly contemporary white-bowed form, playing off the tactile stone wall of the riverbed, resonant of centuries past. The iconic span, designed by Calatrava in 1995, is affectionately referred to as "the comb" by locals.

The old wall continues to embrace the walkway with a view to Flower Bridge. A popular pedestrian crossing constructed in 2002, its masses of colourful blooms are replanted seasonally.

Bofill's modernist aesthetic characterizes the Turia area, linking the 16th century Bridge of the Sea, where a spacious, circular pool below evokes the river, to the Bridge of the Guardian Angel.

Bofill laid out the parcel in a symmetrical, rectilinear arrangement, softening the straight lines with a lush green oasis that incorporates groves of orange trees with an orderly progression of fountains set into the ground and enlivened by red-tinted walls.

The fountains serve as a gateway to Valencia's Palace of Music, where concrete colonnades articulate the palace's formal courtyards. Characterized by olive trees, emerald lawns and elaborately patterned carpet bedding, the popular spot is animated by a vast reflecting pool with dancing water jets synchronized with music from the concert hall.

The mirror image of Bofill's design is restated in the path beyond, its soothing geometry leading directly to the recently completed urban complex of the City of Arts and Sciences. The gleaming white buildings of glass, steel and concrete have risen in a formerly depressed industrial area near the sea.

Exhibitions and performances take place in the arts centre, science museum, oceanographic park (designed by Felix Candela) and combined planetarium, IMAX theatre and Laserium. The vast, undulating grounds are densely planted with swathes of fragrant herbs and trees, which will braid together as they reach maturity.

This Mecca of art and technology has some magical effects. One concept involves pencil cypresses breaking the surface of the pale blue water encircling L'Hemisferic, the planetarium building inspired by the human eye.

The domed entry pavilion, L'Umbracle, stands atop the parking garage. Designed as a public space, the innovative open-air structure captures the imagination with its clarity of light, illuminating allees of palm trees, ornamental vines and aromatic specimens. Adding to the impact, Calatrava created emphatic sculptural forms sheathed in mosaics to house elevators and mask air-conditioning units.

The scope of the Turia is growing. Recent additions include the 86-acre Cabecera Park at the western boundary, which formally connects the diverted river to its former site. The parkland's reconfigured terrain gives rise to naturalistic hills and a lake, threaded with winding paths culminating in a series of overlooks.

Plantings emulate a Mediterranean pinewood and natural wetland habitat, enhanced by enclaves of exotic trees. And work goes forward on the Bioparc, a natural zoo reserve adjoining Cabecera.

A few hours south of Barcelona, perched on the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is drawing garden lovers to neighbourhoods vivified by 21st century landscapes.

More secret gardens both old and new await. The achingly romantic Monforte Gardens hold sway in the city centre and are not to be missed. A classical, mid-19th century gem encompassing magnificent statuary, murmuring fountains and a pool shaped like a water lily, its garden rooms are given form by clipped hedging, while a canopy of cypresses, laurels and pines offers a haven from the sun.

by Lizanne Wheeler - lizanne.sky@gmail.com - http://www.openskyproperty.com

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