MACBA

I visited the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) over the weekend and its a strange place. Inside is a nice museum layout but the art is a little too contemporary for me. I did not get anything out of it. The plaza in front was more interesting to me, the huge hard surfaced plaza out front is really nice but a bit of a surprise. the front of a museum seems like astrange place for skateboarders to hang out and it is also the type of environment that might scare some people away from the museum but it all works out. It must be the strange atmosphere inside the museum that works well with the unexpected atmosphere outside.

The whole area just works, even though I could not stand the art and I am not a big fan of skateboarding. Personally I did not like it but I saw a woman feeding her baby just feet where kids were lounging and watching their friends on their boards. It was probably not the intent of Richard Meier to have a skate park there, but it creates a nice spot to go hang out even if skating isn't something you are into.

Plaza de Espanya

I went to see the fountain show at Plaza de Espanya a couple times and it's a good show. They coordinate the fountain to music and lights. It only runs from 7-9 on weekend nights. It draws a lot of people everyday and people will sit and wait for it to start. It is a huge gathering point and a major attraction in the city.

Fes

Fes is the most unique city I have been to by far. It is almost completely a pedestrian city. There are roads that cover the whole city but the majority of travel is on foot through small alleys and covered market areas. Although tourism is a huge part of their economy they are still very set in their traditional ways. Large loads are carried by donkeys down the street or pushed around in a cart. The picture of the sidewalk shows the ramps that make it possible to go from one step to the next without having a ramped street.

They still have an old fashioned economy and most products are still made by hand, a process which we witnessed in person. They take more time to make but the quality is much better because each one is carefully crafted. The shops on the streets, which are operated by families still use the old practice of training their children in the same trade and making each item by hand right in the shop. The thing that I liked the best about this marketplace was the atmosphere and community. First of all, no price is fixed, everything is negotiable which I would love to use in Best Buy or Target. The other aspect that I thought was cool was that when the call to prayer comes, shop keepers will leave their store completely open to go pray and their neighbors will watch their inventory. It is a much closer community as our guide Momo explained to us.

Placa De Espanya and Barcelona Pavilion

For my Easter break I decided to try to see everything in Barcelona that I had not seen yet. I went to Placa De Espanya because I had walked by it once and I have seen pictures of the fountains that line both sides of the street leading up to Monjuic. It reminded me a little bit of the National Mall in D.C. with the towers marking the entrance and a long narrow area leading up to a massive building on the hill. Like the Mall is has museums and exposition areas lining it. Unfortunately the fountains were not on so I will have to see that on another day.

As we walked up the street Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina we found our destination, the Barcelona Pavilion. I was very disappointed with it. In history class it always looks so nice and I really expected it to be a beautiful building surrounded by others like it but it was actually pretty pathetic. I think the design and the building are very well done using planes and columns to create space without actually separating them, but the context it sits in is awful.

All the pictures I had seen never put it in context and that is usually the case with great looking buildings. The space in front of the pavilion is in disrepair. The grass is dead and patchy and the pool is dirty. It is not the urban space I was expecting. It was a disappointment. The area in front really detracts from the Pavilion and creates an ugly space adjacent to a cool procession of space leading up the mountain past the fountains and cascades. The picture at the bottom (flickr.com) shows the dead area in front.

Trevi Fountain

As I visit more cities in Europe and experience their pedestrian character it becomes more obvious what they have that the U.S. lacks. It is a range of age in the buildings that create the space. Created space is another lacking element. Just thinking about D.C. I can't think of any places that are as crowded as Trevi Fountain is in Rome. It is a compact space with character, a mix of different buildings and most importantly, no cars. Europe is so dense which makes owning a car more of a hassle than a help and that contributes to nicer spaces filled with people. I enjoy the walking traffic much more than vehicle traffic and walking is a great way to experience the city and its character.

Over spring break I traveled to Munich. It was the first European city outside of Spain that I realized what developers are trying to emulate in American cities and towns. The density and energy of these pedestrian centers is something that is missing in America.

European cities have the pedestrian character that the U.S. is trying to revive in many areas. Unfortunately U.S. cities do not have the same approach or environment to replicate the feeling in an area like the one pictured here from Munich. This is the area right near the town center.

Some developers in the U.S. are trying to recreate the car-less districts with shops on the ground floor and apartments above. Silver Spring, Maryland is an example of an attempt to make a dense community within a metropolitan area. What it lacks is a relationship between old and new which can be found in any European city. It is a completely fabricated environment and everything is exactly the same age and it is obvious.

Cordoba

The Great Mosque in Cordoba

Souther Spain

Traveling through the rest of Spain has shown me how spaces can be used for relaxation and recreation rather than just parking lots. Madrid's Plaza Mayor is a huge open court area filled with shops, artists, and tons of activity. People go there on the weekends to relax and browse paintings being sold by different artists. Most of the places I can think of in the U.S. wind up being parking lots and places for shady dealings to take place where nobody wants to go. I think the more leisure minded Europeans are less concerned about getting a close parking space and more willing to walk and enjoy the city on the way to the destination as well as the ultimate destination. Events like the parade in the picture very rarely happen anywhere in the U.S. But that could be a good thing.

el Mamut

Thursday

Yesterday a pigeon took a crap on my head. And this morning i saw 5 mullets of 5 different varieties in a 15 minute walk. What an eventful day.