The Dragon Tree Park 1998-2023

The Dragon Tree Park 1998-2023: 25 years embracing the mythical thousand-year-old Dragon Tree in Icod de los Vinos, on Tenerife island

• Dates: 10/02/2023 - 28/04/2023
• Location: El Laboratorio, C/ Gómez Landero, 19, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands

The Dragon Tree of Icod de los Vinos, in Tenerife, is the oldest specimen of Dracaena Drago, which is preserved in the Atlantic archipelago, a tree 16 m high with a 20 m circumference at the base. An endemic species of the Canary Islands, with a slow growth, the dragon tree has a strong symbolism since, in the past, it was considered the protector of the islands, but, at the beginning of the 1980s, the one who needed protection was precisely the dragon tree. Visitors - about 1 million a year - flocked to visit it, and the intense activity that tourism brought around it put its life in danger. It was necessary to stop the visits and find solutions so that the drago tree did not die of success. When scientific congresses began to talk about "biodiversity" and "renaturation of urban environments", but they were not yet mainstream concepts, the entry of a team of three young architects - Felipe Artengo, Fernando Menis and José María Rodríguez Pastrana - proposed a slow process of ecological restoration, which won the international public design competition called in Tenerife. 

The exhibition, consisting of current and historical images that explain the project and its evolution, can be visited between February 10 and April 28, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, c/ Gómez Landero, 19,  Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

The exhibition is scheduled to travel and be shown in Icod de los Vinos later this year. Supported by: Canarias Aporta, Proexca, Foundation CajaCanarias, Cabildo de Tenerife, Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, ICEX Next, Turismo de Canarias and the Canarian Institute for Cultural Development.