Enric Batlle highlights Collserola as a key link between nature and the metropolis
Enric Batlle, architect, landscape architect and founding partner of Batlleiroig, was one of the key figures in the first axis of the conference “Collserola, nature at the heart of the metropolis”, held at the Torre de Collserola, where he defended the strategic role of the natural park as a connector between the city and the metropolitan territory.
The session, corresponding to Axis 1: “Collserola, the Natural Park of the green metropolis”, began at 9:30 am with the institutional opening by Enrique Fernández Díaz, president of the Board of Torre de Collserola, and Xavier Paz Penche, mayor of Molins de Rei and executive vice president of the Consortium of the Collserola Natural Park. Both highlighted the need to strengthen the park’s governance and its role as an essential green infrastructure for the metropolitan area.
Batlle then opened the content session with the keynote lecture titled “Natural, metropolitan, urban?”, in which he reflected on Collserola’s hybrid identity. He emphasized that this space cannot be understood solely as a protected natural park, but rather as a complex system where ecological, social and urban values converge.
In this regard, Batlle stressed the importance of overcoming the traditional dichotomy between city and nature, advocating for planning models that integrate both dimensions. His intervention highlighted how Collserola simultaneously acts as a green lung, a biodiversity space and a place for public use in a densely urbanized environment.
The landscape architect also underlined the role of the park as a metropolitan ecological infrastructure capable of providing essential environmental services such as climate regulation, water management, and improvements in public health and well-being. These functions are particularly relevant in a context of climate emergency and urban growth.
The conference, organized within the framework of the World Capital of Architecture, is conceived as a space for debate on the future of the park, which occupies a central position in the metropolis and concentrates multiple environmental and social functions. Collserola, with thousands of hectares and a rich diversity of flora and fauna, is considered a structuring element of the territory and a benchmark in the relationship between city and nature.
Axis 1 focused precisely on this unique condition of the park, addressing the challenges related to its management, its relationship with surrounding urban fabrics, and its role in shaping a greener, more resilient and cohesive metropolis.
Through his lecture, Enric Batlle reaffirmed a key idea that runs throughout his professional career: the need to conceive landscape as a tool for urban design, capable of connecting territorial scale with citizens’ everyday life. A vision that positions Collserola not as a boundary, but as the true ecological and social core of metropolitan Barcelona.
