Barcelona

The area where Reial Club Deportivo Espanyol´s stadium was built was known as Manigua de Can Ràbia. Before the area´s development it formed part of a large green area that went from Turo Park up to the current roadways of Avinguda de Sarria, Ronda General Mitre and Via Augusta. The greenery of the area and abundance of green trees made this place one of the most visited in the city.

In the early twenties (XX) the Can Ràbia estate was acquired by Reial Club Deportivo Espanyol to construct its first football stadium. The stadium took the name of the road linking the town of Sarria to Barcelona. The stadium was inaugurated on the 18th of February, 1923, with a capacity that was smaller than initially planned due to the fact the construction company went bankrupt. So, the stadium could only hold 10,000 spectators and it did not belong to the club. Over the years, Espanyol managed to take ownership of the stadium and was expanding its facilities during the 40s, 50s and 60s. It was in this last decade that Ladislao Kubala and Alfredo Di Stefano played there.

The stadium was one of the sporting venues for the 1982 World Cup with several games played there from the second phase, with some of the best teams like Argentina, Brazil and Italy playing. In 1992 the stadium was also the scene of some of the games played in the Barcelona Olympics.

In the 90s, the club´s debts forced it to develop a real estate project that aimed at clearing its debts and as such it looked for a new space for constructing a stadium. The Sarria stadium saw its last football game on June 21st, 1997. After spending a few seasons playing provisionally in the Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc, the Club opened a new stadium in Cornella-El Prat in 2009.

The curved route along across the centre of the park is shaded by linden (Tilia x euchlora). Most of the trees that are in the square are deciduous with the exception of 4 oak (Quercus ilex) that are on the edges of the flower beds, and at the other end, an olive and quercus coccifera. In the rest of the flowerbeds generated by the paved pathways that run across the area there are jacaranda mimosifolia, or Judas trees (Cercis siliquatrum) and red leaf plum (Prunus cerasifera var. atropurpurea ). Ending off the garden, at the top of everything, there are three palm (Phoenix dactilifera) that complete the trees in this space. The rest of the vegetation is a warm weather prairie grass with virtually no shrubs, which gives an open quality to the space. The buildings that surround the garden serve as screens to muffle the background noise of traffic in adjacent streets and this means the greenery doesn´t have to take up this function.

Walkers who do not want to cross the paved roads of the winding route crossing the garden can do so via the streets alongside the facades of the houses on either side of the park, which cross from sea to the mountain side of the city. There, one can appreciate the height and size of the poplars (Populus nigra). Starting from the street called passatge de Ricard Zamora, another reminder of the place´s footballing past, we find different paths alongside flower beds that connect the space longitudinally and transversally. Small raised banks overcome the unevenness of the ground levels as we climb towards the Ronda del General Mitre street, at the top of the gardens. These banks generate different small squares with benches. The highest of these overlooks the whole space with its round gravel area surrounded by benches.