To this new visitor quarter, add the existing nearly-new concert hall higher up the Turia Gardens - themselves designed by another famous son of Spain, the classically-minded Ricardo Bofill. Then there is the nearby new extension to the Museum of Fine Arts with its Goyas and El Grecos. The city's cultural ambitions are very clear. All this lies outside the medieval centre, which itself is being restored and its sewers, dating back to Moorish times, being replaced at a cost of £200m - not before time, as anyone strolling in the ancient alleys on a hot July day can testify. Neither tourists nor businessfolk like bad smells, so the smells are being banished. Nothing is being left to chance.
Back in Senora Barbera's office, however, drawing after drawing reveals that there is much more even than this. New public parks are being made or planned- out near the Congress Centre, plus one up by the junction with the new river, plus another in behind the main railway station. The plan is to sink the railway underground and link it to the high-speed European network, so freeing up the railway yards that divide the southern part of the city. "It will be like Central Park" beams Senora Barbera - though even she frowns when asked how much this will cost, and when it can be done by. Just to sink the railway will cost at least £300m: as for the rest, she doesn't know. This part of Spain is still feeling its way when it comes to private-public sector partnerships. Big publicly-funded projects, aided by European regeneration funds, are still the preferred method.
The mayor knows who elected her, and she knows - like her globally renowned opposite number Pascual Maragall in Barcelona - that she must continue to deliver the goods for the people of her city or be thrown out. Another scheme is produced, well under way - to reclaim the presently inpenetrable top of the busy docks area, close to the Mediterranean beaches, as a place of cafes, restaurants, and shops - the staples of Valencian life. And to make sure that trams connect it all directly to the city centre.
Science Museum by Calatrava.
When Senora Barbera and her colleagues speak with apparent nostalgia of the 15th century, and point with pride to the ancient traditions of the city such as the quaint "water court" that meets in the shadow of the cathedral every Thursday, it quickly becomes apparent that the traditions in question are all to do with maintaining a living city, and are kept only because they are relevant. Stagnation is not considered an option here. Valencia was built by merchant adventurers. Their spirit appears to live on in their political leaders. "The city is recovering a little bit of the light it had some years back," its mayor concludes with untypical modesty.
Images shown on this site are indicative only, are not the same as those used in the article, and are not for reproduction. Images of the Valencia Convention Centre copyright Foster and Partners.
