Valencia – day 2
Posted: April 28th, 2010 | Author: Gergana Milusheva | Filed under: trips and notes | No Comments »the Sunday in Valencia greets us with rain (!!)
we pass by Calatrava again (it is, actually, quite difficult to avoid); the sky is not even of a lead color and the view is a bit disappointing, especially after the dazzling lights from last night
the Court of Justice is right beside it
the entrance
the building, of course, is completely closed on a Sunday, so I take my lens to the windows once again
the reception atrium
the sheer size of this facility can be observed by the magnitude of the side corridors which can also serve as a basis for laws of geometrical perspective studies – parallel lines, by all means, merge into one single point somewhere, over there:
the cartoon characters from Floyd’s The Wall have made a home in front of the building and they are commenting somebody’s case in detail – here you have to play The Trial from the album of the same name in order to complete the picture!
(I have to add something here in this respect – the gentlemen of the above-mentioned emblematic rock band which some of us grew up with – are ARCHTECTS by trade!!!…)
you can see these kinds of things on the side of the Court (this is an authentic 3 m terracing, or am I wrong?)
after making sure that Calatrava will not offer us any more breathtaking sights for the day, we head to the port; the architect responsible for the place we visit next is just as popular and the purpose of the building is no less unclear at first sight, although the spirit and the feeling of it are completely different
America’s Cup Pavilion Valencia
the building was constructed following a completion that took place in 2005
it was completed in 2006, less than a year after the announcement of the competition results (planning, construction, furnishings – all!)
its main purpose was related to Valencia being a host of a major sailing boat competition
over 60% of the over-ground surface is an open-air one in order to make room for the viewers
the modest consoles (of about 15 m) are reinforced concrete…
the rain has stopped completely, the sun is trying to break through the clouds and the pleasant temperatures indulge us to an aimless Sunday loitering, so we let the cab go and head to ancient Valencia
there is this tiny, metal model in front of the cathedral and our architectural souls are drawn to it immediately
and we immediately figure out that its purpose is not to impress the global architectural guild and become the reason for countless sighs over modeling mastery because there is this on the side of it:
the model is something like a “translation” of the corresponding landmark for blind people… and Valencia is full of similar models ☺
the old part of town (home to a million people, by the way) has an abundance of small and narrow streets
with perfectly renovated facades; wherever they have not finished up with the renovations, it looks like this
Twenty years ago, Valencia looked like Sofia nowadays – holes in the streets, scuffed facades, sidewalks suitable for acrobatic tricks (you know the picture); today, the province which Valencia is the capital city of, has an entire building in Brussels that hosts the administrative capacity needed for Eurofund acquisition…
without a warning, the small streets open up into bigger squares, smaller squares or simply way wider crossroads
the abundance of open spaces reminds me of far-away Berlin all the time
(I catch myself thinking that Berlin has become the standard for a quality urban environment; I wonder why…)
we sneak between two several-hundred-years-old mastodons and come upon this
(with a bronze model in front of it, of course)
(under about 4 cm of water, there is a glass surface, covering ancient excavations)
I did not find out who the author was (if someone recognizes the museum, please, let me know)
still, I bow to this unknown architect!
for the amazing way that building fits in the ancient environment and the even more amazing space in the middle of densely populated Valencia; such unearthly tranquility, such timelessness ruled over this water surface that… Calatrava could learn something too! I wanted to stay a bit longer… (for the sake of illustration, I will allow myself the blasphemy to compare it to this)
Leave a Reply