The dream of creating a university Campus

The General Study of Navarre was founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá in 1952. Its first course, in Law, began with eight professors and forty-four students. It was housed in the former Cámara de Comptos Reales, a 14th century building in the Gothic civil style, provisionally ceded by the Diputación Foral de Navarra. From that moment on, the beginnings of the University were scattered in various buildings in the centre of Pamplona.

Until 1960, when, with the transformation of the Estudio General de Navarra into a university, the project demanded large plots of land that would gradually make it possible to create a true university city. Pamplona City Council (with Miguel Javier Urmeneta as the new mayor) offered 130 hectares in the valley of the river Sadar, the southern limit of the municipal district of Pamplona: the Council owned some land in the area (not much) and would facilitate the sale or expropriation of the rest in favour of the University of Navarre.

This is how Campus, in the Sadar valley, began its activity in 1960.

The landscape of the future Campus was, like that of most of the Pamplona basin, of cereal crops, some fruit trees, and intensely parceled land. There were a few narrow tree-lined paths and the trees along the river, those that line the Sadar road and the Lombardy poplars next to the source del Hierro stand out. In addition, a variety of buildings dotted the 130 hectares (which eventually became 113 with the passing of time).

To turn that land into a university campus , everything had to be done.

From the very beginning, austere solutions were sought to maintain campus. Lawns and meadows proved to be the cheapest solutions to achieve a beautiful landscape.

Order, balance, sobriety and simplicity were intentionally sought. The morphology of the terrain was respected to the maximum, softening its slopes only slightly; the planting and care of the lawns and meadows were favoured; and the spaces were opened up, subtly reinforcing the personality of certain corners. A campus was designed to accompany the rhythm and accents of the four seasons of the year.

Accompanying the professionals and pupils in winter led to the planting of conifers (today there are about 900) so that their permanent leaves and the range of their greens would be a counterpoint to the austerity of the winter season.

In addition, the strong personality of the sharp pyramidal shapes of the conifers was offset by the rounded or pendulous shapes of other deciduous trees. The green tones were completed with flowering trees and shrubs and with the autumnal tones of lime trees, maples, beeches, poplars and ginkgos.

The core topic when designing the campus was to plant noble, slow-growing trees with good wood at the required distance (without being intimidated by the initial effect of emptiness); to form copses of three, five or seven specimens; and to play with the personality of individual specimens.

Thus, the campus has developed gradually. Today, the buildings cover an area of 77,773m2. A large expanse of wheat fields has been transformed into a university campus where 4,200 trees grow, including a hundred or so redwoods.