Historic models in the Parc de la Ciutadella 1906–1917
Towards the end of 1907, a curious sculpture was unveiled in the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona: a life-size reproduction of a woolly mammoth made out of reinforced concrete.
The mammoth was in fact just the first specimen in an ambitious project launched by the Municipal Board of Natural Sciences on 17 July 1907. The idea was to fill the park with a dozen life-size sculptures of extinct animals—mammals, reptiles and giant birds—to create a kind of open-air museum that would surprise and delight visitors. Thanks to advances in paleontological science, however, we now know that the models were not entirely true to life.
Of that titanic vision, only the models of the the animals featured in the space known as “Science and More”. The mammoth remained as the sole representative of that pioneering initiative, which sought to bring paleontology and science closer to the people of Barcelona.
More information:
- Guia de les instal·lacions i serveis de la Junta de Ciències Naturals Extracte nº 8: Els grans animals del passat. Primera edició: maig 1917. Parc de Barcelona
- Pérez Azcárate, M., Muñoz Blasco, O., Barberà i Giné, A., Hervàs, N., & Román Carreras, B. (2026). La col·lecció de models d’animals del passat del Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona: Història, conservació i restauració virtual. UNICUM, (24), 21–34. https://doi.org/10.55437/unicum.320