is the oldest garden preserved in the city. The first traces of gardening in the city come from the
Middle Ages, a period in which the garden was mainly found in monastic enclosures, where a garden and a water well were usually located in the
cloister, as well as in
castles and
palaces, where the secular (or "courtly") garden emerged, of small proportions, generally structured from the orchard, around a fountain or pond, with stone benches to sit on. In some gardens of royal palaces the custom arose of housing animals such as ducks, swans or peacocks, sometimes becoming small zoos that could house more exotic animals, such as lions and leopards, as in the garden of the Queen of the
Lesser Royal Palace of Barcelona. From the
Gothic period a garden courtyard of the
Grand Royal Palace of Barcelona (now the
Frederic Marès Museum) is preserved, as well as the
Orange Tree Courtyard of the
Palace of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The cloister of the
Cathedral of Barcelona retains its double bowl fountain in the center, with a Gothic pavilion at one angle, and a garden enclosed by iron railings, with palms,
magnolias and other ancient trees, and a pond called
Fuente de las Ocas (Fountain of the Gooseberries). . However, the first surviving gardens in the city date back to the 18th century. In terms of urban planning, this period saw the opening of promenades in many Spanish cities, inspired by the French
boulevard typology, as in the case of
La Rambla in Barcelona. But the most outstanding achievement of this period is the
Labyrinth Park of Horta, a
neoclassical garden created on the initiative of
Joan Antoni Desvalls, sixth Marquis of Llupià, and built by the Italian architect
Domenico Bagutti and the French gardener
Joseph Delvalet between 1794 and 1808. At the end of the 18th century, the
Paseo Nuevo or
Paseo de la Explanada was opened next to the military Citadel, a wide avenue lined with poplars and elms and decorated with ornamental fountains —of which the
fountain of Hercules is still preserved—. For a time it was the main green space of the city, but it disappeared during the works to prepare the
park of the Citadel for the
Universal Exposition of 1888. . The first public parks appeared in the 19th century, due to the phenomenon of the
Industrial Revolution, which led to an increase in urban environments, sometimes in conditions of environmental degradation due to poor hygienic conditions and increased pollution by the increasingly abundant industrialization. To alleviate these effects, the creation of large urban gardens and parks was promoted, which were paid for by the public authorities, thus giving rise to a "public gardening" that was gradually differentiated from the private
comitencia that until then had monopolized the large gardening projects; this led to the introduction of the concept of
landscape architecture, as well as the development of urban planning. The first public garden in Barcelona was created in 1816: the
Garden of the General, an initiative of the
Captain General of Catalonia,
Francisco Javier Castaños. It was located between the present-day Avinguda Marquès de l'Argentera and the Citadel, in front of where the
Estació de França is today, and covered an area of 0.4 hectares. Unfortunately, this space disappeared in 1877. During the 19th century, the opening of promenades and avenues continued, such as the
Passeig de Gràcia, whose works began in 1821 with the planting of acacias, plane trees, poplars, mulberry trees, oleanders and holm oaks. In this promenade were located
several gardens, such as the Tívoli gardens, between Valencia and Consejo de Ciento streets, which had a nursery of flowers and aromatic plants; the
jardí dels Camps Elisis, between
Aragon and Roussillon streets, which had a garden, a lake with boats, a theater and an amusement park with roller coasters; other gardens were the
Criadero,
Ninfa,
Euterpe and
Prado Catalán. These gardens disappeared a few years later when
Passeig de Gràcia was urbanized. '',
Passeig de Gràcia, installed in 1853 and disappeared before 1877. At that time there were also several projects for the reform and
ensanche of cities, which among other factors multiplied the space of green areas for the use and enjoyment of the population, such as the
expansion of Barcelona, with a design by
Ildefonso Cerdá (1860), which included a green area inside each block of houses, although in most cases it was never built, mainly due to real estate speculation. In 1872, after the demolition of the walls of the
fortress of the Citadel, the
Barcelona City Council organized a competition to build the first large public park in the city, the
Parc de la Ciutadella. The project was commissioned to
Josep Fontserè, who designed extensive gardens for the recreation of the citizens, under the slogan "gardens are to cities what lungs are to the human body".
Ramón Oliva, director of Barcelona's public gardens since 1874, was in charge of the gardening work. This park would be the main nucleus of the subsequent
Universal Exposition of 1888. Between the 19th and 20th centuries
modernism emerged, a movement that gave special relevance to design and architecture as a global work, both exterior and interior, with an anti-classical language inherited from
romanticism, a strong link between architecture and the
applied arts, and a markedly ornamental style. Its main exponent was
Antoni Gaudí, who in addition to being an architect was also an urban planner and landscape designer, with a personal style based on the observation of nature. Gaudí had a great knowledge of
botany and
geomorphology, and although he was a great advocate of the use of Mediterranean vegetation, especially the type of
sclerophyllous forest typical of the Mediterranean area, such as pines and oaks, he also used allochthonous species such as palms, mimosas and eucalyptus. Many of his projects included gardens, such as the
Casa Vicens or the
Güell Pavilions, but Gaudí's main garden project was the
Parc Güell (1900-1914), commissioned by his patron, Count
Eusebi Güell, to build a residential development in the style of the English garden cities, located on the so-called
Montaña Pelada, in
La Salut district of Barcelona. In 1984
Unesco included Parc Güell in the
World Heritage Site "
Works of Antoni Gaudí". . With the arrival of the 20th century, the Barcelona City Council organized a competition for a plan of connections between the
Eixample and the municipalities
recently added to the city, won in 1905 by
Léon Jaussely, who designed a
plan that foresaw large road infrastructures (promenades, diagonals, promenades), parks, rail links and service areas. Although it was only partially realized, it inspired Barcelona's urban planning for much of the century. In the first decades of the 20th century, thanks to the impulse of a new exhibition, the
1929 International Exposition, the
Montjuïc mountain was developed with a project by the French landscape architect
Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, author of the
Maria Luisa park in
Seville, where he brought into fashion the so-called "neo-Sevillian style", characterized by the use of brick and tile, and where water and the use of elements such as pergolas and trellises, as well as stairs and terraces to dynamize the grounds, are essential. Forestier was a proponent of the garden as a work of art, and among his premises was the maximum use of local resources, so in his works in Spain he worked essentially with Mediterranean vegetation, although he also introduced some species from
South America, where he had worked, such as the
tipuana, the
jacaranda and the
ombú. In Montjuïc he had the collaboration of
Nicolau Maria Rubió i Tudurí, architect and landscape designer, with whom he created a complex with a markedly Mediterranean character and
classicist taste, centered on the
Laribal (1917-1924) and
Miramar (1919-1923) gardens. The team formed by Forestier and Rubió left several other works in the city, such as the landscaping of the
Plaza de Armas in the
Parc de la Ciutadella (1915) and the
Parc del Guinardó (1918). On the other hand, the
Botanical Garden of Barcelona was established in 1930, located at the bottom of a quarry behind the
National Palace of Montjuïc, with a magnificent collection of exotic plants compiled by the botanist
Pius Font i Quer. , work of
Antoni Gaudí. Rubió i Tudurí was the leading representative of
Noucentisme, a movement for the renovation of culture that sought to bring it closer to the innovations produced in the new 20th century, and which, contrary to the Nordic values defended by modernism, advocated a return to the Mediterranean world, to classical Greco-Latin culture. Director of Parks and Gardens of Barcelona between 1917 and 1937, he was the main promoter of the "Mediterranean garden", which is denoted in his works such as the gardens of the
Francesc Macià square (1925), the
Font del Racó park (1926), the gardens of the
Royal Palace of Pedralbes (1927), those of
Turó Park (1933) and those of the
Gaudí square, in front of the
Sagrada Familia (1981). Rubió i Tudurí founded in 1933 the Municipal School of Apprentice Gardeners, currently the Rubió i Tudurí Municipal Secondary School. In 1926 he proposed with the text
El problema de los espacios libres —presented at the XI National Congress of Architects— the placement of a series of green spaces in the form of concentric semicircles between the Besós and Llobregat rivers, all along the
Siera de Collserola, with small enclaves in the inner part of the city in the style of the London squares; unfortunately, the project was not executed, except in small portions. ''. The
Civil War brought the city's landscaping projects to a halt, and in the
post-war period the actions focused more on the maintenance and restoration of existing areas than on the creation of new green zones. In 1940,
Lluís Riudor i Carol, the initiator of landscaping in Catalonia, was put in charge of Parks and Gardens. His works included the Austria Garden —located in the
Parc Güell area—, the
Monterols Park, the
Cervantes Park, and several interventions in the
Montjuïc mountain aimed at suppressing the
shantytowns produced by immigration in the post-war period, This project was continued by his successor,
Joaquim Casamor, with the creation of several thematic gardens, such as the
Mossèn Costa i Llobera gardens, specialized in cacti and succulents, and the
Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer gardens, dedicated to aquatic, bulbous and rhizomatous plants. His work also included the
Mirador del Alcalde gardens on Montjuïc and the
Joan Maragall gardens, located around the
Albeniz Palace, residence of the Spanish royal family during their visits to Barcelona, in neoclassical style; and, in the rest of Barcelona, the
Putget,
Guineueta and
Villa Amelia parks. During this period, the Barcelona City Council also purchased several private properties that were incorporated into the public parks, such as the
Horta Labyrinth Park (1971), the
Castell de l'Oreneta Park (1978) and the
Aigües Park (1978). During
Ada Colau's mayoralty, a program of naturalization and ecological management of the city's green spaces was promoted, with the aim of increasing the green surface area and promoting biodiversity. Among other actions, vegetation was increased, native species were protected, trees were pruned less frequently and plants were allowed to grow in the tree wells. The goal was to increase green spaces by 160 hectares by 2030, with a target of 1 m2 per person. In addition to increasing green spaces, 80 insect facilities and more than 260 bird nests were installed. The use of chemical herbicides was also eliminated and phytosanitary treatments were reduced. == List of parks and gardens ==