The City of Arts and Sciences: Valencia's riverbed gamble

The backstoryWhy this exists, and why it's here

The 1957 flood is the hinge point for almost everything about modern Valencia's relationship with the Turia. The river, prone to sudden and violent flash flooding from storms in its mountainous catchment, rose fast enough that night to catch much of the city off guard; the resulting Plan Sur, approved under Franco's government, diverted the river's course entirely around the city's southern flank via a new channel, completed through the 1960s and 70s. That left a nine-kilometre dry riverbed slicing straight through the city with no agreed purpose, and decades of debate followed over whether to fill it with a motorway, as was seriously proposed and partially built at one end, or preserve it as public space.

Valencians overwhelmingly chose public space, and the resulting Turia Gardens are now one of the most-used pieces of civic infrastructure in the city. The City of Arts and Sciences occupies the riverbed's eastern terminus, where it was commissioned in the mid-1990s as a flagship project intended to put Valencia on the international architectural map in the way Bilbao's Guggenheim had just done for its own city. Calatrava, who trained as both an architect and a structural engineer and grew up in the Valencia region, led the design of four of the complex's five major structures, with Félix Candela contributing the structural design of the Oceanogràfic's distinctive Arctic and Antarctic pavilions before his death partway through the project.

Construction proceeded in phases rather than as a single build: L'Hemisfèric opened first in 1998, the Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe in 2000, L'Umbracle and the Palau de les Arts followed through the 2000s, with the Palau — the opera house and performing arts venue — not opening until 2005 after a troubled, over-budget construction process that drew considerable local criticism at the time, criticism that has largely faded as the completed complex settled into its role as the city's defining modern landmark.

On the groundThe five buildings, and what each actually is

L'Hemisfèric is the eye-shaped building that appears in every postcard, its concrete 'eyelid' structure opening and closing over a domed IMAX cinema, planetarium and laser projection space inside. It's the smallest of the ticketed venues and the one most people photograph without ever buying a ticket to go inside — the exterior, especially reflected in its surrounding pool, is the single most photographed element of the entire complex.

The Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe is the long, rib-vaulted science museum whose skeletal white structure is often mistaken for a dinosaur's ribcage from a distance, which is roughly the intended effect. Inside, it's a hands-on, largely interactive science museum aimed heavily at families and school groups, covering everything from genetics to space exploration across three floors, and it's genuinely worth a half-day if travelling with children rather than a quick architectural drive-by.

L'Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium in Europe, sits slightly apart from the other four buildings at the park's southeastern end, designed by Félix Candela around a series of distinct marine ecosystem pavilions — Arctic, Antarctic, Mediterranean, tropical, wetlands — connected by walkways and an underwater tunnel through the main shark and ray tank. It's the complex's single most popular paid attraction and, for most visitors, the best use of a dedicated ticket within the whole site.

L'Umbracle is a free, walkable landscaped promenade of arched white ribs and native Mediterranean plantings that functions as the complex's garden and the best vantage point for photographing the other buildings together; it costs nothing and rewards an unhurried half-hour. The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, the complex's opera house and performing arts hall, closes out the eastern end with its distinctive helmet-like roof structure — visiting its interior generally means buying a ticket to an actual performance or a scheduled guided tour, rather than general walk-up access.

How to do it wellGetting more out of a visit

Decide what you're actually visiting before you arrive, because the free and paid layers of this complex are easy to conflate. If photography and architecture are the goal, a free walk along L'Umbracle and around the reflecting pools covers the complex's most striking angles without a single ticket. If children or a genuine interest in marine life are involved, L'Oceanogràfic justifies its own half-day and its own ticket, bought online in advance — it is comfortably the most popular paid attraction in Valencia and queues build fast by mid-morning in any season.

Come back at dusk even if you've already walked the complex by day. The floodlit ribs of L'Hemisfèric and their reflection in the surrounding pool are a genuinely different experience after dark, with far fewer people competing for the same photograph than during the day. The complex sits at the eastern end of the Turia Gardens, so arriving by bike along the riverbed park — rentable by the hour from several points in the old town — is both the most pleasant approach and a good way to see several kilometres of the gardens in the process.

If buying combined tickets covering the Museu de les Ciències and L'Oceanogràfic together, check current pricing carefully; combined passes are usually better value than two separate purchases but availability and structure change by season. Avoid the complex in the hottest hours of a Valencian summer afternoon if visiting the outdoor areas on foot — there's very little shade across most of the site, and the white concrete surfaces radiate heat noticeably by early afternoon in July and August.