Day 61
Day 61
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Barcelona, Spain
This morning we had breakfast at a coffee shop on las Ramblas, cappuccino and pastries. The staff of the shop took daown too many orders and it took us fifteen minutes to leave as they tried to figure out who the pastry went to. We walked down las Ramblas to the waterfront, where there was a office tower by EMBT under construction. It had some huge cantilevers and some really unique uses of reflective glass. We continued down to the beach of Barcelonetta, which was a huge urban redevelopment about 10 years ago. We had a group discussion about large urban moves as a stimulus for development, and as a way to foster communities, all the while standing in front of the large functionless copper fish by Frank Ghery. We walked up the street to the university. The library in the university was inserted into an old brick building with lots of columns and brick vaults. The architects who did the renovation came up with a precast concrete modular system that fit in around the columns and allowed for the space to become multistoried. The lighting design also helped create a very warm intimate study environment.
From the university we took a metro out to the Forum, and the “blue whale” by Herzog and deMeuron. Although there were some interesting moves in the building it could really only be understood by looking at it from above in model form. There was a huge architecture exhibit inside focusing mostly on Barcelona that allowed that opportunity. We ate lunch in a nearby mall food court even though all of the stores were closed for a holiday. Right next to the mall was a landscape park by EMBT that suspended several huge concrete pots in the air using the trellis system that the plantings were supposed to grow out on. Right now it doesn’t seem to accomplish much, but maybe in another ten years or so when the vines have grown it will make more sense, for now it just served as a good perch for all of the seagulls.
We rejoined Lynn and Damian at the Torre Agbar but unfortunately it was closed for the holiday as well. I don’t understand how the louvers on the building do anything as they are not operable. We ventured back to the hotel for a siesta. I tried to read but again Erik turned on his CNN to watch the same stories as were on yesterday. That night we met with Lynn and Damian and the told us how to get to Park Guell the next day and they told us about the e train to Bilbao on Saturday. Lynn and Damian took us to a tasty but crowded tapas bar for dinner and we finally discovered how tapas was supposed to work. We rushed off from dinner to do a pup crawl with Kristin. The first bar was pretty fun giving out unlimited beer for an hour but after that the drinks were increasingly lame, and the whole thing turned out to be a gimmick to make you buy drinks. Ian pissed me off right after the third bar and since I wasn’t having much fun anyways I just decided to go home.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Barcelona, Spain
This morning we had breakfast at a coffee shop on las Ramblas, cappuccino and pastries. The staff of the shop took daown too many orders and it took us fifteen minutes to leave as they tried to figure out who the pastry went to. We walked down las Ramblas to the waterfront, where there was a office tower by EMBT under construction. It had some huge cantilevers and some really unique uses of reflective glass. We continued down to the beach of Barcelonetta, which was a huge urban redevelopment about 10 years ago. We had a group discussion about large urban moves as a stimulus for development, and as a way to foster communities, all the while standing in front of the large functionless copper fish by Frank Ghery. We walked up the street to the university. The library in the university was inserted into an old brick building with lots of columns and brick vaults. The architects who did the renovation came up with a precast concrete modular system that fit in around the columns and allowed for the space to become multistoried. The lighting design also helped create a very warm intimate study environment.
From the university we took a metro out to the Forum, and the “blue whale” by Herzog and deMeuron. Although there were some interesting moves in the building it could really only be understood by looking at it from above in model form. There was a huge architecture exhibit inside focusing mostly on Barcelona that allowed that opportunity. We ate lunch in a nearby mall food court even though all of the stores were closed for a holiday. Right next to the mall was a landscape park by EMBT that suspended several huge concrete pots in the air using the trellis system that the plantings were supposed to grow out on. Right now it doesn’t seem to accomplish much, but maybe in another ten years or so when the vines have grown it will make more sense, for now it just served as a good perch for all of the seagulls.
We rejoined Lynn and Damian at the Torre Agbar but unfortunately it was closed for the holiday as well. I don’t understand how the louvers on the building do anything as they are not operable. We ventured back to the hotel for a siesta. I tried to read but again Erik turned on his CNN to watch the same stories as were on yesterday. That night we met with Lynn and Damian and the told us how to get to Park Guell the next day and they told us about the e train to Bilbao on Saturday. Lynn and Damian took us to a tasty but crowded tapas bar for dinner and we finally discovered how tapas was supposed to work. We rushed off from dinner to do a pup crawl with Kristin. The first bar was pretty fun giving out unlimited beer for an hour but after that the drinks were increasingly lame, and the whole thing turned out to be a gimmick to make you buy drinks. Ian pissed me off right after the third bar and since I wasn’t having much fun anyways I just decided to go home.
posted by idiovoyager at 1:02 AM
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