Contemporary Architecture in Valencia

DATE

22.08.2025

Beyond the well-known City of Arts and Sciences, the city features a variety of buildings designed by internationally renowned architects. One of the most iconic examples is the Veles e Vents building, designed by David Chipperfield and b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos, built for the 2007 America’s Cup. This light and horizontal structure, overlooking the port like a series of suspended platforms, has been praised for its structural clarity, functional elegance, and its ability to create visual connections between the city and the sea.

Another milestone in contemporary architecture in Valencia is the Palacio de Congresos (Conference Centre), designed by British architect Norman Foster in 1998. Located at the city’s northwest entrance, the building is defined by its curved zinc-clad roof, which acts as a unifying gesture for a complex program of auditoriums, meeting rooms, and exhibition spaces. Its efficient, light-filled, and versatile design has earned international awards and helped consolidate the modern image of the capital of the Turia River. In the historic city center, another significant work is the MuVIM (Valencian Museum of Enlightenment and Modernity), a sober and striking design by Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra. The museum is distinguished by its pure volume, the use of exposed concrete, and the interplay of solids and voids that frame interior paths and patios with powerful spatial impact.

It is also worth noting the interventions by architect Ricardo Bofill in Section XI of the Jardín del Turia, one of the most distinctive areas of the former riverbed turned linear park. In this section, Bofill designed a sequence of pergolas, ponds, stepped geometries, and walkways that combine classical elements reinterpreted with a contemporary language. The design creates an orderly yet dynamic system, enriching the urban landscape and offering pedestrians an architectural experience that moves between the monumental and the intimate. This intervention shows how public space can also be an architectural work in itself, with its own identity within a changing environment.

Joining this list is the recently completed Parque Central, built on the former railway lands in the city center and designed by the landscape architecture studio Gustafson Porter + Bowman. This intervention represents one of Valencia’s largest contemporary urban projects and reimagines public space as a sequence of gardens, open plazas, resting areas, and Mediterranean-inspired walkways. With diverse planting and a design that integrates water, shade, and natural materials, the park returns an essential fragment of the city’s fabric, creating new connections between neighborhoods historically divided by railway infrastructure. Its spatial quality and long-term vision position it as a benchmark for contemporary urbanism in Spain.

MARCH VALENCIA | ARQUITECTURA Y DISEÑO

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