Thursday, February 2, 2012

Barcelona Botanical Institute


Institut Botànic De Barcelona


Situated on 35 acres (14 hectares) of Montjuic Mountain -- adjacent to the Olympic Stadium -- is the Botanical Garden of Barcelona. designed by an interdisciplinary team comprising the architects Carlos Ferrater and Josep Lluís Canosa, the landscape architect Bet Figueras, the horticulturalist Artur Bossy and the biologist Joan Pedrola, the garden is a geometric response to the sloping site and its views over the city to the sea.


An integral component of the garden is the Barcelona Botanical Institute designed by Carlos Ferrater. Where the architect's contribution to the garden used triangles to group plantings, create paths, and work with the contours of the mountain, the Institute sits in opposition, a linear bar at a corner of the garden. The architect calls it "a horizontal line that crosses the sloping natural terrain like a hinge between two topographical datums."