Park in the Old Cemetery of Begoña

Bilbao. Spain | 2023

Municipality of Bilbao

The proposal for the new Begoña Garden is a 'clearing in the forest'. The limits and dimensions of the cemetery have favoured this idea, as it seeks to recover part of its previous environment as well as to take advantage of the area to generate a wealth of natural situations. Structurally, it is arranged in three concentric circles, in a sort of mystical transition from the everyday and collective (the city) to the singular and individual (nature and the emptiness in the forest). The three rings that make up this transition are built from two compositional elements: the first is materialised with the perimeter masonry walls and a ring of pantheons - moved from their current locations to their shelter - configuring an environment in which the history of the city is reflected in its architecture and funerary vestiges; the second ring is an area paved with stonework and some pieces reused from the cemetery, a path that crosses a wooded line made up of trees of evocative, and aromatic species with different chromatic ranges; This second circle goes beyond the surrounding architectural environment and introduces the visitor to a more vegetal and isolated space; the next and last ring is built with a line of acacia trees, which form the most important space in the garden, the clearing in the forest. Here, after crossing the realms of memory and the forest (the past and the present), the visitor definitively encounters an isolated, almost mystical space, built behind a series of filters and screens of vegetation that separate it from the built environment. This void is presented as an illuminated meadow, with three green basins or amphitheatres that in turn provide three horizontal living spaces, through which 'gentle' slopes are articulated that allow for enjoyment and universal transits through the garden.