Espais Verds

The site covers an area of roughly 1,830 square metres and is a privately owned public space belonging to the University of Barcelona (UB). The budget for the project is 1.2 million euros, financed with European Next Generation funds. Promoted by BIMSA, the work is planned for the summer of 2025 and should take six months to complete.

New open-air museum space

This new open-air museum space will have various education and dissemination spaces displaying natural materials, together with exhibition pieces and elements offering information relating to geology and Earth sciences.

One of the most notable aspects of the project is that it makes use of a space outside of the faculty site as a continuation of the teaching and research spaces at the University. The Jardí Geològic will thus become the first street museum in the city of Barcelona.

Four sections

The project has four different sections:

Space 1: Geological Time

This space offers a design on the ground representing geological time, made with natural materials, such as different types of stone representing the different geological periods. The route also features large chunks of unfashioned rock, linked to the corresponding periods of time.

Space 2: The Earth

Capitalising on the proximity of a set of steps leading to the Faculty of Earth Sciences, the garden will have a “gate of knowledge” using a “carpet” introducing the internal structure of the Earth. As with the other spaces, the paving here will form part of the museum narrative, with the layers of the planet represented using materials that make them up.

Space 3: Geological Wall – Tall Ecors

In front of the main entrance to the faculty the intention is to create an intersection of the Earth’s crust representing our geographical sphere. The wall will be 20 metres long, 40cm thick and with a height varying from 85 cm to 1.30 metres, standing in diagonal to the square and allowing natural movement of people to the entrance steps.

Space 4: Applications and processes

In front of the Faculty of Biology the idea is to explain the importance of geology and natural materials through the history of humanity, with a view to the future. The space next to the parterres here should have an elevated pavement that “folds” in the form of dunes, creating a visual effect that exposes the materials on display. Natural rocks will be included in flat parts of the paving, representing the different processes that have given them form and material.

The idea to create a geological garden in front of the entrance to the Faculty of Earth Sciences initially came about under the concept of the University of Barcelona’s “Gate of Knowledge” and on the initiative of the Faculty of Geology (today the Faculty of Earth Sciences). The museum space in the garden has been designed by RFArq Arquitectos, under the authorship of Eliana Crubellati Benedetti, with museology by Jordi Vives Arumí, museologist and scientific disseminator, and urban modelling by VIAQUA, Tècnics.