The Turia Garden
Introduction
The Jardín del Turia is a public urban park located in the old bed of the Turia River in the city of Valencia. It currently occupies about 136 hectares, which will be 160.5 hectares in the future with the completion of the Desembocadura park and with a length of close to 8.5 km that will reach almost 10 km with the completion of the last section of the park and an average width of about 160 m.[1][2] It is one of the largest purely urban gardens in Spain. The park begins on the border with the municipality of Mislata, next to the Canaleta park of said municipality and the Bioparc Valencia zoo (inaugurated in 2008) about 19 m above sea level. n. m. and ends at Passeig de l'Albereda next to the Oceanogràfic (inaugurated in 2003) at 1 m above sea level. n. m.
It was founded in 1986, several decades after the great flood in Valencia. After the flood, the City Council and the Government of Spain planned in the 1960s the construction of a large communications axis (highways and other means of transport) that would connect the port with the airport and also solve internal traffic. Subsequently, and after the citizen movement 'El llit del Túria és nostre i el volem verd'[3] ('The Turia riverbed is ours and we want it green'), there was a shift towards its conversion into a place of leisure and nature for citizens and visitors. With this they achieved the transfer of ownership of the old riverbed to Valencia (1976, decree of Juan Carlos I) and also the definitive approval as a green area and public park for these lands (1979)[1], all of this as the origin of a competition promoted by the still Franco government of Miguel Ramón Izquierdo.
In 1986 the park was inaugurated, in which one of its most central sections is next to the Jardines del Real (popularly, 'Viveros'). The garden crosses the city from practically the port, more specifically from the City of Arts and Sciences, to the new Bioparc Valencia, which replaces the old zoo. Its linear shape that crosses the city means that a large population of the city resides in the vicinity of the park, which makes it probably the most visited park in Spain.
History
The project
In 1957 Valencia experienced one of the most tragic episodes in its history. On October 14, 1957, the great Valencia flood flooded the city and caused the death of around a hundred people. The Government of Spain and the Valencia City Council decided that the Turia could not continue passing through the center of Valencia due to the danger posed by new flooding. So in 1958 it was decided to move the river to a nearby place, diverting it through the so-called Plan Sur. Since 1946, the architect Fernando García Ordoñez had been studying alternatives and after the flood, the minister and engineer Vicente Mortes commissioned a detailed study with three options, of which the South solution was finally chosen[4], which was completed in 1972, giving rise to the creation on the margins of a fast circulation route, which years later was called V-30. Thanks to this ring road, the possibility of avoiding freight and transit traffic within the city was seen and an initial idea of converting the old channel into an urban highway that would cross the city became obsolete. The information campaigns and editorial positioning of the newspaper Las Provincias in defense of the cultural heritage since 1973, of the riverbed with its parapets built and maintained since the 15th century by what is known as the as well as the environment, contributed to the creation and channeling of citizen awareness.[5].