Parc de la Ciutadella：algo natural?

I think this park do not have a really strong relations with the "all" of the citizens in Barcelona, comparing to the other public parks. Because it is more made as artificially and it seems to be similar to architecture. Maybe the history that this park has is too strong and make me consider that way. It seems like one monument of Barcelona, more than a normal park for the citizens. It really has a strong back ground.

And also this is like one outside museum for the Barcelona citizens. It is very symbolic. Maybe it is normal thing in Europe, but for me the parks in the north part only located on one mountain or a hill are like the “parks”. Which are very natural made. But still I think it is very important huge green space for the city side.

　　

Comparing to the parks in my city, I would like to choose Ueno park in Tokyo. Maybe the looking and the planning of the park is the most similar to Parc de la Ciutadella.

Ueno park has a zoo, museums, lake, statues, and other traditional architectures too. Also this park belonged to Imperial for a while, so for that point, we can see something similar that it did not start from a normal citizen park.

About the location, this place also has been a temple for hereditary military dictator of Japan, in Edo period. But during the war, it was burned down. And after that they were deciding to make this area to a hospital. But the doctor from Holland, A. F. Bauduin supposed to save this area as a park.

　
　

　

So the park opened in 1876. The lake was natural and also some of the architecture around there. But after that in 1882, one of the museum and the zoo were opened.

Today, this park is very popular among every citizens of Tokyo. This is one of the places that is very cultural for us. And also touristic area. And important thing of this park is it is almost everything natural and we can feel the seasons of Japan. For example in spring the cherry blossoms can be able to see in this park. And in autumn the leaves of the trees around the lake will change.

　

And about the zoos, for Japanese it is very normal included in a park or having a connection to the park. And this Ueno zoo exists just like Barcelona zoo. But the interesting thing of Barcelona zoo was to use the buildings which was not planned only for the zoo.

At first I wrote that Parc de la Ciutadella might not have a strong connection with all of the citizens, but I cannot tell the truth. Because parks are the most unknown element for someone outside from the city. But one thing I can say is, Barcelona has a lot of plazas and this is the big difference from my city. For us, park is almost only the common public area but for people in Barcelona, I think there are more choices of the public areas.