Architect Santiago Calatrava's homeland is where one of his most impressive works, the CAC or City of Arts and Sciences, is located and our DMC partner Destination Spain shares some of Valencia with travelers!
To maintain its city's cultural standing, the government of Valencia resolved to establish a museum of national importance. The 35-hectare site chosen for this initiative is located in the dry bed of the Turia River, midway between the old city and the coastal district of Nazaret. A challenging architectural ensemble by Calatrava brings new focus to this previously incoherent and underdeveloped area, while linking the center city and the sea. In 1991, Calatrava won the competition for the original project: a telecommunications tower, to be built on the west end of the site. Later that same year, Calatrava received the commission to develop the whole complex, which was also to include a science museum and a planetarium. After a change of government in 1996, the planned telecommunications tower was replaced by an Opera House (Palau de les Arts).
The Opera House, Planetarium/IMAX Theater (Hemispheric Theater) and Príncipe Felipe Science Museum form a linear sequence from west to east. A fifth structure, known as L'Umbracle, is a promenade and parking garage, built within an open arcade that is a contemporary reinvention of the winter garden. A raised, axial walkway, offering views to the sea, serves as an ordering element, with gardens and reflecting pools on either side. The Science Museum is a spatial tour de force, 104-meter wide and 241-meter long. Like the grand exhibition pavilions of the past, it is a longitudinal building, created from the modular development of transverse sections that repeat along the length of the site. It is no coincidence that one of Disney's latest films, Tomorrowland, was shot in the City of Arts and Sciences.
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