From June 7, 2024, to March 2, 2025, the Sala Picasso of the Greenhouse at Ciutadella Park in Barcelona hosted an exhibition, with the involvement of the UAB, aimed at showing how human action is altering the balance of the planet and generating climate change with serious consequences. The urban agriculture exhibition attracted over half a million visitors.
For nine months, thousands of visitors passed daily through the "Climatic Machine" exhibition at the Greenhouse of Ciutadella Park, organized by the Municipal Institute of Parks and Gardens of Barcelona. Visitors were able to see tomato and bean crops growing in the Picasso Room of the greenhouse, prepared in the facilities of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the UAB (ICTA-UAB). Designed using content developed by the UAB research group Sostenipra, the exhibition was complemented by three audiovisual productions, a vertical garden, and a model designed by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). The maintenance of the hydroponic crops was carried out by Tectum Garden, a spin-off company of the UAB specializing in urban gardens.
In a three-part tour, the exhibition aimed to unite knowledge and art to address three concepts related to greenhouses and the greenhouse effect, distributed across the three rooms of the installation: the past of greenhouses in the Magnòlies room; art, science, and the greenhouse effect in the central space; and the future of these installations as a response to more sustainable food in the Picasso room.
"It has undoubtedly been the most visited urban agriculture exhibition in the world, surpassing half a million visits in 269 days," explains Xavier Gabarrell, head of the Sostenipra group at UAB and vice-rector of Campus and Sustainability at the UAB. The exhibition integrated hydroponic trays for food production following the model of the ICTA-UAB Urban Agriculture Laboratory. Visitors could observe the growth of plants and the functioning of food production in buildings, based on data obtained from the Fertilecity project started in 2014, and other research projects developed at ICTA-UAB over the past 10 years. During these 269 days, two cycles of tomato planting (with 48 plants in each cycle) were carried out, the first lasting until September and the second until the end of the year, followed by the planting and cultivation of broad beans.
The exhibition concluded on Sunday, March 2, with a ceremony attended by UAB Rector Javier Lafuente and Vice-Rector of Campus and Sustainability Xavier Gabarrell.