A bridge over the zoo. Barcelona continues the transformation of Parc de la Ciutadella with the creation of a new access from Wellington Street that will connect the area with the park through a new dream walkway: a bridge over the zoo.
This intervention will improve the connection between the Ciutat Vella core, the Vila Olímpica and the Til-lers promenade, consolidating the park as a more permeable, accessible and walkable space. The project is part of the Ciutadella del Coneixement Strategy, which seeks to turn this emblematic green lung into a research and dissemination center of reference in Europe.
What will the bridge over the zoo be like?
The new walkway will recover a historic access designed by Josep Fontserè, integrating it into the current layout of the park. This new “biodiversity promenade”, as the city council calls it, will be at least 20 meters wide and have a total surface area of 26,000 m², and will extend from Wellington Street to Passeig de Picasso.
In order to connect the currently open part of the park with Wellington Street, the promenade will have to cross a section that is currently occupied by the zoo. This will be achieved by opening a new subway access to the zoo on Wellington Street, which will be completely integrated into the park, and which will force the new “bioversity promenade” to run, like a bridge, above the zoo (although always at street level) and from which the zoo can be glimpsed.
This project will favor the connection between neighborhoods such as Vila Olímpica, Poblenou and Sant Martí with Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and La Ribera, and will integrate public transport stations such as Ciutadella-Vila Olímpica and the streetcar, improving accessibility for thousands of citizens.
The project will begin this January with the drafting of the executive project, the works will be tendered in autumn and will start in the first quarter of 2026, with an estimated duration of one year and a total investment of 13 million euros. The Zoo will remain open throughout the project, but about ten facilities will be affected and some animals will have to move to the reserve that has been built on the site of the old Aquarama.
All the failed bridges over the Ciutadella
This connection project is not new. The entrance on Welllington Street was already foreseen in the original project of the park by Josep Fontseré in the 19th century, but Mayor Porcioles went on to convert this entrance during the Franco regime into the entrance to the zoo.
Mayor Xavier Trias already made a reopening proposal in 2013 and Ada Colau already presented another project to permeabilize the park on this side .
This last project included the recovery of a mythical bridge that is always talked about but never crystallizes: the one that is to connect the Parc de la Ciutadella with the promenade, passing over the train tracks.