21st Century (2000–present)

Valencia Parque Central

2011– · Spain · Southern Europe · Transit-oriented urbanism and corridor planning · Planned by City of Valencia
Masterplan of Valencia's Parque Central over the buried railway lands: numbered gardens, water features and the retained Ribes train sheds converted to sport, university, cultural and social uses.
Masterplan of Valencia's Parque Central over the buried railway lands: numbered gardens, water features and the retained Ribes train sheds converted to sport, university, cultural and social uses. · © Gustafson Porter + Bowman — used with credit · Gustafson Porter + Bowman (with Borgos Pieper, Grupotec and Nova Ingeniería) — Parque Central, Valencia

Core idea

Rail burial with linear park

Why it matters

Reclaims vast inner-city land

Description

Parque Central is a major infrastructure and urban project in Valencia, advanced from 2011 by the City of Valencia with state rail bodies, to bury the railway approach that has long severed the city's southern districts and to build a large linear park over the corridor. The first phase of the park, designed by Gustafson Porter + Bowman with local partners, opened in the late 2010s, with station works and further land release continuing.

Significance

The project belongs to the family of rail-burial schemes through which Spanish cities have reclaimed vast tracts of central land, following precedents in Madrid and Barcelona. It is significant for combining transport modernisation with landscape-led regeneration, and it feeds debates on the cost, pace and property dynamics of financing parks through railway undergrounding.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.