THE CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCE / VALENCIA -

If you haven’t been to Valencia and you’re planning make sure NOT to miss one of the largest scientific and cultural complexes in Europe; The City of Arts and Sciences.

The complex is made up of impressive buildings like the Hemisfèric and Oceanogràfic and it should make your time worth not just because of its outstanding architecture but also because of its content.

After a catastrophic flood in 1957 from the river Turia, the nearing area was drained and turned into a park.

*One of the largest urban parks, The Turia Gardens, stretches 9 kilometers around the city, crossed by 18 bridges with numerous foot paths, leisure and sports areas to chill out*

Some forty years later, in 1996, the construction of the complex began and it was opened shortly after with the opening of L’Hemisfèric. The main designers were Spanish architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela.

*A giant eye looking building, L’Hemisfèric was opened in 1998 as planetarium and works as IMAX cinema now, as well as a space for audiovisual art or entertainment*

The city covers an area of 350 000 square meters and its made out of several separated building that host different art and science centers. For a detailed visit of the area, you definitely need a day or two, and that can be arranged with a combined bought ticket for the complex. We, however, we mainly interested in the aquarium and architecture it self, so we spent half a day for our visit.

We started with the visit to the L’Oceanografic, an open-air oceanographic park, opened in 2003.

With 110 000 square meters and 42 000 000 liters of water it is the largest oceanographic aquarium in Europe and third biggest in the world (after Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China and Aquarium in Singapore)

Each of the buildings represents different aquatic environment including the Mediterranean, wetlands, temperate and tropical seas, the Antarctic, the Arctic, islands and the Red Sea.

The aquarium is a home to over 500 different species including dolphins, belugas, sawfish, jellyfish, starfish, sea urchins, walruses, sea lions, seals, penguins, turtles, sharks and rays.

*The cover of the aquarium in the form of a water lily, is the work of the architect Felix Candela*

*The aquarium is also a home to some wetland bird species*

*During the day there are many activities offered for the visitors*

*Our schedule fit perfectly for the bio-educational dolphin exhibition*

The 25 million liters of water dolphinarium is not just a space for the visitors to see the dolphin skills but also a space for their daily care and research

The half an hour show teaches the visitors about the most important aspects of their biology and behavior as well

Counting on people spending the whole day inside of the City there are numerous refreshing points around the Oceanografic as well as the cantine that serves warm food.

A cantine style Restaurante Océanos offers both warm dishes, sandwiches, drinks and deserts and it was a perfect place for us to rest and gain some extra energy before heading to the other part of the City of Arts and Science

Passing by the latest addition to the City, the 2009 L’Àgora we walked over to the Museo de las Ciencias Príncipe Felipe.

*Agora is designed to hold a variety of events such as concerts, performances, exhibitions, conventions and international sports meetings*

Originally budgeted at €300 million in 1991 for three structures, it has expanded about three times the initial expected cost (left: L’Umbracle, right: Science museum, way back Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts, in the front: L’Hemisfèric

The skeleton like building finished in 2000 is an interactive museum of science, Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe where we spent the rest of our visit browsing around several floors trying to catch our one yr old and some glimpse of science.

Although much of the ground floor is reserved for various companies the upper three floors serves as exhibition space that invites its visitors to participate in the various experiments.

*The first floor has a view of the Turia Garden surrounding it, which is over 13 500 square meters of water*

The second floor hosts “The Legacy of Science” exhibition by researchers Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Severo Ochoa y Jean Dausset

The third floor is known as the “Chromosome Forest” and shows the sequencing of human DNA as well as the “Zero Gravity,” “Space Academy” and “Marvel Superheroes” exhibitions

The building is about 42 000 m² of which 26 000 m² is exhibition space, making it the largest in Spain

The building has 20 000 m² of glass, 4 000 panes, 58,000 m3 of concrete and 14 000 tons of steel

The building is 220 meters long, 80 meters wide and 55 meters high

Created on the verge between two millenniums, with the main idea to reconstruct the abandoned area of Valencia, The City of Arts and Science is a magnificent architectural complex.

Walking around thees futuristic buildings, in between high steel arches, next to the turquoise colored pool we have come to the conclusion that this structure might be the most beautiful architecture that we have ever seen.

Living in Oslo, that is a home to some renowned architectural projects like the Opera house by Snøhetta (2008), Barcode project by various architectural studios (2016), Oslo Public Library by Lundhagem Arkitekter and Atelier (2019), the new Munch museum by estudio Herreros (Spaniards!!!) (2021) we said; yeah non of that beats this 🤣

*L’Umbracle from 2001 on the left is an open structure built over a car park like a shade cover but it works like a small botanical garden and exhibition space as well*

*Definitely one of the most magnificent contemporary architectural projects ever seen. Or run through 🙂*

Make sure to leave enough time and energy for this space, or make it happen once !

THE CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCE / VALENCIA

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