Calatrava´s Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
(I realize that having photos to look at would make this post more interesting so I am including a link to the center´s website
http://www.valencians.com/cac/ )
So today I made my way to Calatrava´s Center for arts and sciences. For those of you who don´t know architecture, Calatrava is a world famous architect known for his grand, modern structures (He was also the architect for the Oriente Train and bus station in Lisbon I had mentioned earlier). The center for arts and sciences has several buildings as part of its complex. The Opera house, the hemisphere (IMAX) the Center for artes and sciences, the science museum, the Aquarium (apparently the largest in Europe.)
To get there I had a pleasant walk down a public park that is in the old river bed of The Turia River. Apparently the river had been silting up over the years and in 1957 there were some major floods. So the city of Valencia diverted the river´s course through some new canals. They built a quite pleasant park in old river bed. It´s kind of cool because all the old bridges still remain.
Once at the center of arts and sciences I was quite amazed. The structures are really cool, there is hardly a vertical column to be found it´s just a web of concrete and steel... with some glass in between. Everything is white and it is surrounded by many large turquoise pools. In the height of the day, it was a bit blinding.
I tried to go to the aquarium, since it is Europe´s largest, but the woman selling me the ticket told me she wouldn´t because it takes 7 hours to see the aquarium and they were only open 5 more hours (wow!). That was actually ok with me because it was a 22€ entrance fee (yikes!). So instead I just hung around the complex, had some lunch, took many photos and tried to figure out what I thought about it.
I have mixed reactions to the complex. It seems a bit over the top to me. It´s amazing, for sure and structurally significant, for sure, but it´s almost like it overwhelms your senses and overpowers its surroundings. They were also obviously having trouble with the upkeep ( not unlike the seattle library). It made me feel a bit like the architecture was a bit impractical, or perhaps not being kept up and utilized to its fullest potential. They also had artifical barriers all over the place (not sure if they are temporary or not) but it seemed to me like it was interfereing with the experience of the place, not to be able to walk from one to the other without hitting a steel mesh fence.
Anyhow, that makes it sound very negative and god knows I´m no architecture critic but it´s just my reactions to the place. As I said, there is no arguing that it is an amazing complex from both a structural and architectural standpoint, perhaps it is merely that my expectations were too high.
http://www.valencians.com/cac/ )
So today I made my way to Calatrava´s Center for arts and sciences. For those of you who don´t know architecture, Calatrava is a world famous architect known for his grand, modern structures (He was also the architect for the Oriente Train and bus station in Lisbon I had mentioned earlier). The center for arts and sciences has several buildings as part of its complex. The Opera house, the hemisphere (IMAX) the Center for artes and sciences, the science museum, the Aquarium (apparently the largest in Europe.)
To get there I had a pleasant walk down a public park that is in the old river bed of The Turia River. Apparently the river had been silting up over the years and in 1957 there were some major floods. So the city of Valencia diverted the river´s course through some new canals. They built a quite pleasant park in old river bed. It´s kind of cool because all the old bridges still remain.
Once at the center of arts and sciences I was quite amazed. The structures are really cool, there is hardly a vertical column to be found it´s just a web of concrete and steel... with some glass in between. Everything is white and it is surrounded by many large turquoise pools. In the height of the day, it was a bit blinding.
I tried to go to the aquarium, since it is Europe´s largest, but the woman selling me the ticket told me she wouldn´t because it takes 7 hours to see the aquarium and they were only open 5 more hours (wow!). That was actually ok with me because it was a 22€ entrance fee (yikes!). So instead I just hung around the complex, had some lunch, took many photos and tried to figure out what I thought about it.
I have mixed reactions to the complex. It seems a bit over the top to me. It´s amazing, for sure and structurally significant, for sure, but it´s almost like it overwhelms your senses and overpowers its surroundings. They were also obviously having trouble with the upkeep ( not unlike the seattle library). It made me feel a bit like the architecture was a bit impractical, or perhaps not being kept up and utilized to its fullest potential. They also had artifical barriers all over the place (not sure if they are temporary or not) but it seemed to me like it was interfereing with the experience of the place, not to be able to walk from one to the other without hitting a steel mesh fence.
Anyhow, that makes it sound very negative and god knows I´m no architecture critic but it´s just my reactions to the place. As I said, there is no arguing that it is an amazing complex from both a structural and architectural standpoint, perhaps it is merely that my expectations were too high.
posted by mnlrs at 11:27 AM
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