At the end of this year, the city of Barcelona will inaugurate a pioneering project: a vertical forest with trees suspended from the old wall of the Palace of Metallurgy, built in the late 1920s.
The work, according to the La Caixa foundation, responsible for the initiative, will feature 15 trees and 22,000 plants in an area of ​​500 m². The idea is that the project’s water consumption is reduced thanks to the rainwater harvesting system and the reuse of water used in irrigation.
According to the Spanish newspaper El PaÃs, the work, in the Montjuïc region, will cost around one million euros.
“Forty different species will bring the plant world closer to citizens in a never-before-seen perspective,” says the foundation in the project’s disclosure text. The initiative is being built to commemorate the 20th anniversary of CaixaForum Barcelona, ​​a reference cultural space in the Spanish city.
The site has hosted more than 200 exhibitions and receives an average of 800,000 visitors a year.
Also according to the Spanish vehicle, the suspended trees will be planted in pots measuring 1.7 meters in height and between 1.6 m and 2 m in length. In them, sculptors will outline the roots of each of the trees. Information about the work can be accessed by visitors through QR codes.
Thirteen water tanks will also be installed at the site to irrigate the vegetation, guaranteeing up to 15 days of self-sufficiency – or seven, in the case of drier seasons.
In Madrid, just over 600 kilometers from Barcelona, ​​CaixaForum also built a vertical garden. The structure was the first to be installed in Spain and today it is the largest continuous area in the world.
According to the foundation, more than 15,000 plants were placed at the site, covering the 460 m² wall, with native and foreign species placed in a damp blanket. It is a large plant wall that survives without contact with the ground.
