In the last century and a half, the transformation of the Turia riverbed as it passes through Valencia (Eastern Spain) has evolved in parallel to its urban and metropolitan dynamics. The irregular uses of the riverbed have reflected the main needs and deficiencies and have led to a progressive denaturalization. As the 20th century progressed, urban development interests were imposed, leading to the degradation of the environmental and scenic values of the riverfront. Especially during the forties, in the middle of the Spanish post-war period, the Turia suffered an evident institutional abandonment and was losing weight in the collective conscience of the Valencians. After the great flood of 1957, with drastic human, material and economic losses, most of the competent authorities agreed that the passage of the river through the city was not only an inconvenience, but also a threat. The interruption of the coevolutionary coexistence between Valencia and the Turia was confirmed in the sixties with the complete diversion of the river flow through the construction of a new canal to the south of the city. The rupture of this binomial became definitive during the eighties through the gardening of the reclassified bed; the resulting urban park, still unfinished, became the lung of the city and housed urban fittings of all kinds, but was deprived of any flow. In recent years, in a very different social-political framework that advocates biodiversity, participatory processes and respect for historical memory, a debate has arisen on the need to reverse the extreme artificialization of the lower Turia. Most of the attention is focused on the new riverbed, whose landscape integration and naturalization are still pending. But there is also discussion about the way in which the urban park that meanders along the old riverbed should contact the sea.

Iván Portugués Mollá
Universitat de València

 
ID Abstract: 879