City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia

In 1989, the then president of the Valencian Regional Government, Joan Lerma, took up the idea of José María López Piñero, professor of the history of scien...
Read more

In 1989, the then president of the Valencian Regional Government, Joan Lerma, took up the idea of José María López Piñero, professor of the history of science at the University of Valencia, to build a scientific museum on the land of the Garden of the Turia River that bordered the road with mulberry trees. Lerma created a team to launch the project.

The "City of the Sciences" was the name that the autonomous government gave to the initiative, and plans included a 370m high communications tower, which would have been the third highest one in the world at that time; a planetarium; and the museum of science. The total price of the works was estimated to be about 25,000 million pesetas.

The project did however cause controversy. The Conservative Popular Party saw in the City of the Sciences a "work of the pharaohs" that would serve only to swell the ego of the Socialists, who were the driving forces behind the initiative. Later, several successive Popular Party governments continued and expanded the complex way beyond the original Socialist project at an enormous cost, heavily indebting the city.
Read less