INDOC. Documentation Centre about Art and Nature

Lara Almarcegui: A Wasteland on the Banks of the Ebro

The project, produced by the CDAN and the Government of Aragon, involves conserving the space without designing, landscaping or renewing it. The idea is to keep it protected as a wasteland forever. Because the land will not be shaped according to any design, everything that happens there will occur by chance and not as part of any set plan. Nature will evolve at its whim, influenced only by the use to which the space is put and by the wind, rain, sun, vegetation, and the dynamics of the river.

The land is located at the apex of the Meandro de Ranillas, in the Water Park. The plot consists of 1.5 hectares of thickets in an area flooded by the Ebro River practically every year. The project aims to partially conserve the appearance of spaces that are open to the possibilities offered by the future – a look typical of empty plots before 2008. It will become increasingly meaningful as the city grows and is transformed. When other sites are built on or integrated in the design of the park woodlands, this will be the only one that remains empty and open to the vagaries of chance.

Almarcegui’s project for Expo Zaragoza 2008 grew out of an agreement to keep a piece of land in a virgin state for as long as possible. This is the latest of a series of spaces Almarcegui is seeking to conserve. Other projects include Rotterdam Harbour, 2003-2018, Genk, 2004-2014, and Arganzuela Public Slaughterhouse, Madrid, 2005-2006. All these sites are commonplace in appearance but beautiful in their own way. They also challenge our conception of what is ‘wild’.
 

More information

• CDAN website

Source: texts CDAN. Photo by Lara Almarcegui.

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