Barcelona

Parc de la Guineueta is one of a group of parks created in Barcelona during the second half of the 20th century to bring green spaces to the series of housing estates which were being built to house a large part of the migrant workers coming to the city in the 1950s and 1960s.
The partial plan for developing this new neighbourhood was approved in 1956 and houses continued to be built there until 1970, when the park was established. It is located in one of the two estates that make up the Guineueta neighbourhood, which is named after the Torrent de la Guineu stream that crosses it.

Visitors entering the park through the main entrance, next to Plaça de Llucmajor, cannot help but notice a group of eight large petticoat palm trees (Washingtonia filifera). Other notable trees nearby include Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) and acacias (Robinia pseudoacacia).
The upper part of the central parterre is framed by a landscaped and highly ornamental bosquet, with trees such as yuccas (Yucca elephantipes and Yucca gloriosa), jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia), Judas trees (Cercis siliquastrum), pata de vaca trees (Bauhinia forficata) and peppercorn trees (Schinus molle). Behind the bosquet, on both sides, the boughs of date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) and fan palms (Washingtonia robusta) can be seen .
Visitors will also find cedars (Cedrus deodara), oriental and giant thujas (Thuja orientalis and Thuja gigantea), hackberry trees (Celtis australis) and stone pines (Pinus pinea) that shade the children’s play area, as well as plane trees (Platanus x hispanica), which protect the picnic area from the sun during the summer, and several olive trees (Olea europaea), among other species. Anyone going up the main path on the left will see a jujube tree (Ziziphus jujuba) planted there in 1999, bearing a plaque explaining that fact and a later one paying homage to Pere Fontàs i Puig, who composed a sardana called El parc de la Guineu (Fox Park), which was put up in 2002 by the Ideal d’en Clavé sardana dance group.

The sculpture linked to the park’s name is a 5-metre-long, 1.5-metre-tall painted iron work by Julià Riu i Serra. Entitled Guineu (Fox), it lurks behind a hedge, just like a fox lying in wait.
The other sculpture − or rather, monument − was an initiative of the Andalusian Centre in Catalonia and represents Barcelona’s homage to Blas Infante (regarded as the father of Andalusian nationalism). Designed by Josep Lluís Delgado, it consists of a row of small, truncated and irregularly sized columns (eight, the number of provinces in Andalusia) made from pink marble and placed on a base clad in black granite. There is a bronze work next it, standing on stone, a bust of Blas Infante by Xavier Cuenca Iturat.
Andalusian associations in the Nou Barris district’s hold Cruces de Mayo (May Cross) festivities for a fortnight every year and the Catalan Federation of Andalusian Cultural Associations lays a wreath at the monument on the first Sunday in March to mark Andalusia Day.

The park spreads out upwards and downwards from a large parterre with a pond. There is a figure of a fox lurking behind a hedge, on the grass, contemplating and watching over its territory.
The two main paths lie on either side of this central parterre, parallel to each other and linked to the paths that cross the rest of the park, above and below. A large square above enables the park to attract large crowds throughout the year. Sardana dances are organised there on Sundays by the Ideal d’en Clavé group from the Les Roquetes neighbourhood, and a large sardana gathering, with around 3,000 dancers, is held every October.
Lower down the park, close to Plaça de Llucmajor, you will find more conventional squares, which serve as resting places away from the activities that take place every day, while at the top end, next to the park, there are schools and sports facilities.