Spain MUDEC Group 1: Ciudad de las artes y las ciencia

When I found out we were going to Valencia I expected it to be more like Brugee, focused backwards on preserving its history. While Valencia's old town continues to offer a strong living monument to its past what we found in the City was a strong mix of heritage and modernity far surpassing my original expectations. While I really loved the atmosphere of the old town I was struck by the City of the Arts and Sciences. Built as a place to further cultural development and serve as a monument to the past and future it is a grand assembly of buildings set into the city of Valencia in an old farming area. It is build into the river bed of the Turia (now rerouted) on the outer edges of Valencia the space created a link between the city center and the port areas. It was fun discovering the area on our own as we searched for the aquarium and was certainly interesting to find out the real purpose of the buildings. As we searched we assigned various nautical attributes to the different buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava, we eventually realized that they all reflected a nautical motif. The city within a city has come to serve as a symbol of Valencia is formed by five main elements that define the space the Hemisferic, the Umbracle, the Principe Felipe Science Museum, the Oceanografico and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. We thought the beautiful landscaped umbracle was supposed to be a fishbone style building, turns out its a parking garage. The newly designed Agora is a multifunctional (mostly sports) space and even it conjured thoughts of a fish, a whale or a sinking ship. Interpreting these symbols was part of the fun of visiting the area.

One particularly interesting sight was the reflecting pool expanding out in front of the Science Museum, both a monument to the river that once ran through its location and a reminder of their Mediterranean background. While we originally guessed it was an Olympic swimming pool, at least we got the aquatic theme, it serves its intended purpose well as it guides your view in one direction to the Hemisferic an Imax center modeled off a steel eye and the first attraction to debut in the City of Arts and Science. Looking back the other direction past the El Puente de l'Assut de L'Or you see the Oceanografic, Europe's largest aquarium and definitely worth a visit. The 'Dolphinarium' put on a spectacular show that was a refreshing change from our usual concentration of cityscape. Even the architecture of the aquarium was designed to fit into the city of the Arts and Sciences with buildings designed by Félix Candela. Though a word of warning, some of these magnificent buildings were built more for splendor that purpose, the Agora has yet to be completed and apparently most of the money for the science museum was spent on its construction so unless you are very interested in the subject or have curious children traveling with you it offers it's best view out of doors. Nearby lays a protected agricultural zone showing a literal border which frames the old and the new. When the city was planned it started to be seen as a monument of the socialists though luckily for us when the Popular Party took over they only made a few changes and continued on to build this living monument. As the architect Calatrava said, “I am proud of the fact that people can walk through and around the main buildings without paying. It is a city to be discovered by promenading.”