Gulbenkian: “Diversity laboratory” in private garden open to all

Inaugurated in 1969, the Garden of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, designed by landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles (1922-2020) and António Viana Barreto (1924-2012), “was completely revolutionary” at that time.

“ Because, contrary to what everyone knew in Portugal, it was not built as a classic garden, geometric, decorative, but with a completely innovative idea, to evoke the Portuguese landscape, the Mediterranean landscape, building through contrasts of light and shadow, and trying to recreate the ecosystems that we find naturally in the landscape ", recalled the landscape architect Paula Corte-Real, responsible for the Gulbenkian Garden, a visit of the Lusa to space.

The lands in the Novas Avenues area where the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, created today 70 years ago, installed its headquarters were a park, where since then, and since 1943, the Feira Popular de Lisboa was installed.

The Foundation studied other possibilities in the city, but the choice fell on the former Park of Santa Gertrudes, due to the large size of the land.

Although much of the garden is on built areas, “mechanical and biological conditions have been created to develop naturally several distinct ecosystems – aquatic, rocks, dry areas”.

In the lower areas of the Garden, next to the water, ash trees, willows, reeds, iris, “series of vegetation characteristic of the water lines”.

In the driest areas, the ash tree is “the queen tree”, but there are also cork oaks and many oaks: alvarinho, roble, negrol.

Although the vast majority of the vegetation was placed there, the animals that inhabit the Garden, namely more than 40 species of birds, being the most popular real duck, “were coming as ecosystems evolved and offering conditions of both food and habitat”.

“ Contrary to what most people think, the animals were not put here by the Foundation and are animals that, in general, are both here and go to other areas of the city ", said Paula Corte-Real.

Real ducks, for example, which are originally a migratory species, are often seen in other parts of the city, such as the Zoo, Edward VII and Monsanto Park, but it is in Gulbenkian that they spend more time and nest.

In spring and early summer, it is common to see litters of baby ducks strolling around the garden, “something that delights everyone.”.

Although ducks remain in the Lisbon area, there are birds that arrive every year and leave for other stops.

“ Some come here all winter, some live here all year. Some are here only at the end of September and early October, when they come in migrations. They come from Asia, they stop here, then they go to Africa”, shared the responsible, remembering that in the autumn it is customary to hold a scratching workshop, a technique that allows to study aspects of biology, ecology, behavior and movements of wild birds.

Like any other ecosystem, “it’s a delicate balance”, for example. Animals that arrive in the Garden and remain there for a while, then disappear. Paula Corte-Real told us that this happened to the chicks that made nests in the flower trees of the headquarters building, but they were eventually expelled by the Gaias.

Almost 70 years after it was created, “the garden remains a biodiversity laboratory in the city of Lisbon, and this progressive increase in diversity, not only of animals, but also of plants”, is seen.

In a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation book more than 270 plant species are identified, and within each different taxa.

But according to Paula Corte-Real, there are plants in the Garden that are not included in the publication, “which are spontaneous, emerge and are incorporated into the vegetable cast of the garden”, since gardeners, during maintenance, “have the care not to remove everything that has not been planted”.

Plants are being kept, even because “they are very important also for biodiversity”, since there are “species, for example, of butterflies, whose caterpillars only feed on one or two species of plants, something that happens to many insects”.

Recently, Gulbenkian made, with Tagis – Centro de Conservação das Butterflies de Portugal, a non-profit association dedicated to the investigation, dissemination and preservation of the natural habitats of butterflies and other insects, a survey of insects, many of which pollinators, inhabiting the Garden.

“ But this is a world. During the year they came here to survey the insects, they managed to discover species of which only had very few records in Portugal ", said the person responsible.

Paula Corte-Real recalls that, because the Jardim da Gulbenkian is a space with “many environments familiar to everyone”, as it evokes the Portuguese landscape, “with more collected and more private areas, and other more open areas of meeting”, people look for it “to walk, study, to meet friends or boyfriends, or to participate in cultural events”, as can easily be seen in a walk through the garden.

Paula Corte-Real really believes that “almost all Lisboners have memories linked to the Gulbenkian Foundation Garden”.

Among these, there are several who visit him repeatedly and “do not enter the Foundation buildings”, something Gulbenkian tries to counter. “There is always a lot of cultural offer – exhibitions, concerts, conversations, conferences –, many of these events open to the public. And we almost used the garden also to invite people to come to know the rest of the Foundation activity ", said.

Paula Corte-Real recalls that, besides being created with the idea of evoking the Portuguese landscape, from the beginning “it was clear that the Garden was intended to be an open space for everyone, where people could enjoy culture, nature and well-being”.

There are about a million people per year, with the summer months and weekends being the most competitive times.

People who live, work or study nearby, for example, “use the garden a lot, and use it in their daily lives as much as possible”.

“ Neighbors make a point of crossing it daily in their journeys to work, because it is a moment of pause. And they use it almost like a garden of their home, they pick up the children from school and are here a little before going home ", he said.

Two years ago, with the extension of the Garden to the South, a new entrance was created on Marquês da Fronteira Street, joining those of Bern Avenue, Marquis Street Sá da Bandeira, Rua Nicolau Bettencourt and Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar.

Still without thinking about possible changes in the dimension of space, the garden was built for, “in the image of the Portuguese landscape, not being a static thing”.

There you can “read the passage of seasons, see trees and plants dying and others being born, some sown by birds or the wind”.

At times when the garden went into degradation processes, “the landscape architects Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles were called and performed regeneration actions”.

In 2000, Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, at the time of almost 80 years old, was asked to create new areas of stay and new accessible paths, since almost all of the original project have small steps.

The result was a waterfront zone on the side of Av. António Augusto de Aguiar, with water mirrors that reflect the treetops. “It is also a poetic attitude in which he draws our attention to what is above and that we tend not to see,” said Paula Corte-Real.

In the 1980s, when the Center for Modern Art (CAM) was built, the landscape architect Edgar Fontes entered the Garden, responsible for framing the new building in the garden.

More recently, when the foundation bought the land south of CAM, a new garden was created, whose project is the responsibility of Lebanese landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, “very inspired by the ambiences of the original garden”.

“ We worked with the same type of vegetation, with the same concepts of working the light and shadow, the construction of ambiences, more closed corners and more open spaces, having been preserved all the existing vegetation, and only indigenous species of the Lisbon region were planted”, said Paula Corte-Real.

The Gulbenkian Garden has its own educational program and service, with activities for all levels of education, including senior universities.

Throughout the year, with a higher incidence in spring and autumn, guided tours, photography workshops, drawing and construction with vegetable materials are scheduled. In 2025, about 450 activities were carried out.

In programming, “everything this garden has the opportunity to tell: we can learn a great deal, not only the functioning of ecosystems, the rules of natural life, processes, chemical phenomena, biodiversity...”.

And that's so much in a garden that's private, but open to everyone.