PUERTO DE LA CRUZ (TENERIFE), June 2. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The La Orotava Acclimatization Garden –better known as the Puerto de La Cruz Botanical Garden– will have, as of the second half of 2023, a new visitor center after an investment of 2.9 million.
The project was presented this Thursday by the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, and by the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Alicia Vanoostende, both accompanied by the Mayor of Puerto de la Cruz, Marco González, and the Minister of Management of the Natural Environment and Security in the Cabildo de Tenerife, Isabel García, among other authorities present.
During his speech, the president highlighted “the peace, stillness and beauty of this authentic natural wonder” which will have a visitor center “also peculiar and unique” in the future.
As Torres stressed after watching the video that shows how the facilities will look, there are many reasons to “be happy because it is wonderful to see what will be the reality of a comprehensive project that began in 2007, which will now develop its third phase and has a deadline 11 months”.
The head of the Autonomous Executive considered that the Botanical Garden visitor center project has magnificent possibilities, underlining its “excellent design” and the fact that it is being developed in a space that was ahead of time to architectural criteria that came together years later .
“It is to be congratulated and I hope that, during the summer of next year, we can return and that everything we have seen today in the presentation video we can touch, smell and enjoy, because there is no turning back and there is already a day less for its inauguration,” he said.
The works, which have an execution period of 11 months and a budget of 2.9 million euros, consist of equipping the center, already built, with the necessary exhibition and informative elements to be able to open it to the public, so that it can develop the outreach activity for which it was created.
The execution of the works is the responsibility of the state public company Tragsatec, awarded the project.
A SPACE MANAGED BY THE ICIA
The Garden of Acclimatization of La Orotava, which depends on the Canarian Institute of Agricultural Research (ICIA), a body attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, proposes this project in order to consolidate a means of raising awareness with clear messages about the plant world and also with the purpose of making the public aware of the fact that plants and trees are living beings.
In addition, there will be content on plant evolution and adaptation to different factors and the role of flora in the global development of life.
Users of the visitor center will be able to take a tour under the slogan ‘The secret life of plants’.
Around this, the contents have been distributed in four blocks that are ‘Plants and us’, ‘Evolutions’, ‘Plant intelligence’ and ‘Sense and sensitivity’.
The most innovative aspect of the space is that the exhibition model focuses on pieces of art, specifically sculptures with a great visual impact that support the educational messages that are to be conveyed.
The project is designed to contribute to the interaction of the visitor, from the conception of the spaces to the uses to which all of them will be put, passing through the design, the furniture, the exhibition structures and the writing of content.
The visitor center will offer a multidisciplinary space where sculptures and artistic installations facilitate the interaction of visitors. Thus, the route will encourage the public to analyze and reflect on the messages that are to be transmitted through the plastic elements.
SURFACE OF 2,500 SQUARE METERS
The infrastructure has an approximate area of 2,500 square meters, distributed in a basement and two floors. The basement houses an exhibition room, another for schoolchildren and a space for a practical laboratory, as well as an audiovisual room.
Instead, the first floor will house a small shop, a cafeteria and a restaurant, while the last will consist of a roof as a viewpoint towards the Valley of La Orotava and the Botanical Garden itself.
In the same enclosure, there will also be rest areas designed as areas for contemplation of the sculptural blocks and which are intended to be areas for reflection, learning and interaction thanks to the exhibition resources with which they are equipped.
