Media: El Mundo Viajes
Original title: El jardín de Vicente Todolí
Author: María Fluxá
Photography: Diego Opazo, Ricardo Gómez-Acebo
Date: 13th March 2026
The life of Vicent Todolí, the Spanish art curator with the greatest international projection, has the traits of a mythological epic. Defying expectations, he left his small hometown in the Valencian countryside to succeed in the world of contemporary art. After training in the United States, founding the Serralves Museum in Porto, directing institutions such as Tate Modern in London, and —since 2012— Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, he eventually, like Ulysses, returned home.
His Ithaca is Palmera, five kilometres from Gandía and about 65 from the city of Valencia. There he grew up among orange groves, a crop his family had cultivated for more than five generations. There he decided to plant a citrus garden, not without its own odyssey. He did so to stop an urban development plan that threatened the landscape of his childhood and that of his ancestors.
After purchasing the land from around fifteen neighbouring smallholders, he created Todolí Citrus Fundació, a non-profit project structured around a citrus collection. The so-called El Bartolí orchard hosts nearly 500 varieties from all over the world, likely the largest collection of citrus fruits grown outdoors anywhere. Citrons, pomelos, lemons, grapefruits —which, as we learn here, are a hybrid between pomelo and orange—, limes, kumquats, oranges and mandarins form a small paradise. In fact, this is not entirely new. It is a very old practice: the Medici family in the 16th century already had the finest citrus collection in Europe in Florence, where art and nature converged during the Renaissance. A century later, orangeries spread across the continent.
Here, unlike those, there are no pots: the trees grow directly in the ground, forming an open-air museum. This is how Todolí conceived it, as he explains in his book I Would Like to Create a Garden (and See It Grow): “I like to define this orchard as a museum, as a garden museum where a multisensory journey and experience unfold. It is designed as a visit that engages all your senses and imposes its own rhythm. It is a living museum, where there is no need to periodically renew the presentation of the collection because it is constantly changing.”
As nature dictates the rhythm, visits to the Citrus Foundation take place from November to April, coinciding with the citrus ripening season, and require prior booking through the website. The guided tour lasts two hours and includes a tasting. Beyond a dose of vitamin C, it is an experience that engages all the senses: a journey through flavours, aromas and colours of a beauty we rarely notice in everyday life. Even those born in the Mediterranean tend to underestimate it. Yet not so long ago, oranges were a luxury in many places. In northern European countries such as Iceland, children received only one orange at Christmas for decades.
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The tour also has a strong educational component. The foundation’s mission is to generate and share knowledge, actively participating in scientific, gastronomic and artistic research. Art, inevitably, occupies a central role. Todolí has made it a way of understanding and relating to the world. And although he likes to quote his friend, the Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles —“art is of an essential uselessness”— here citrus and art complement and dialogue with each other organically.
There are contemporary works —such as Carsten Höller’s aviary or Jorge Peris’s sculpture Fuente Citrus Deliciosa— by artist friends Todolí has met throughout decades of curatorial practice. A source of aesthetic, symbolic and cultural knowledge, the foundation has built a contemporary art collection thanks to the generosity of many artists who have joined the project. International figures such as Silvia Bächli, Maurizio Cattelan, Joan Jonas, Miralda or Juan Uslé have donated works to the garden, strengthening the dialogue between art and nature.
This same connection inspired philanthropic initiatives such as The Citrus Project, a limited edition of works by fourteen internationally renowned artists, whose proceeds support the foundation’s research and conservation activities. In the near future, the creation of Espai Citrus is planned —an exhibition pavilion designed by Carlos Salazar that will house and share the collection.
The architect also designed the current Laboratory, where research is conducted on the use and application of citrus in perfumery and cosmetics, but also —and especially— in gastronomy. With the guidance of Ferran Adrià, renowned chefs have worked here. The foundation also features a small shop offering books and prints, as well as marmalades, chocolate, gin and, of course, fresh fruit, which can also be purchased online, thus supporting the foundation’s mission (www.todolicitrusfundacio.org).
