The L'Escorxador Park is the result of a competition of ideas called in 1981 by the Barcelona City Council to develop the land freed from the former general slaughterhouse of Barcelona. In the mid 60's it was moved out of town. It is located on the western limit of the Eixample Cerdà and occupies an area of six hectares, equivalent to four blocks of the Cerdà plot.
The consideration of "free space with fundamentally urban space", defined by a built envelope, exerts different tensions on each of the limits that make up the plot occupied by the new park. This built envelope is formed by the plot of the old suburban core of Sants and the three incomplete façades of the Eixample Cerdà, and, although its occupation is perfectly planned, the same doesn’t happen in the definition of the architectural façade in front of the park.
The refusal to offer a façade from the park motivates a collapse of the interior level of these, two metres below the street level. Just along Vilamarí Street and opposite the axis of Consell de Cent Street, a ground-floor building appears, arranged in the form of pavilions with roofs at different levels and porches that open onto the park. This building is in the middle of a linear lake between the forest and the sidewalk of Vilamarí Street.
The park, as a metaphor for the city, also offers a reading through its changes in section, which adapt to the topography of the site, organised in terraces: the highest one houses Miró's monumental sculpture. In between, a series of spaces for sports and social activities unfold accompanied by a regular grid of palm trees. In the lower part, a series of irregularly planted pines create a succession of quiet and intimate spaces.
