Barcelona Day Two

Inside the Science Museum in London

Barcelona Day Two- April 2^nd 2010

Last night was a bad start to the Barcelona trip. It seems like going out was a bad idea. I went to the club that I read about in a small travelers Barcelona book I bought when I was stranded at the London stansted airport that recommended this place. So I went there.. and first they asked for an invitation which I didn’t have… then I found an Italian guy who had to help me get an invitation by going to a bar down the street and buying a drink. Then we found out the invitation needed stamped on the back.. it was a hassel just to get in. Anyways, when we got it, it wasn’t even that great. It felt too crammed inside. Even though there were two floors, it was quite small- the dance floor/bar area was long and narrow, like it was crammed between two buildings.

So the unfortunate events from last night wore off into today.. and ultimately, the rest of the trip. This was the first time I was beginning to start feeling homesickness. I felt unsafe in Barcelona. I didn’t like the atmosphere. People didn’t feel friendly unless you were buying something from them. I just wanted to go home back in the states… make money and not always spend it, communicate with people in the same language again, order lots of food for cheap, cook a barbeque, go to the rec, everything… I was beginning to miss it all. I wasn’t used to this place and their customs. All I wanted to do today was go to the beach and relax, and hopefully I would be back in Florence… and then finally back home.

So, after getting a shower and sleeping in until about 11, we took the metro to Las Ramblas and headed to the beach for a couple hours. We stopped by a kebab shop and got food for the beach beforehand. It was supposed to be the nicest day of the week in Spain at least, so we figured we might as well go to the beach today. The beach was very nice- by far the nicest beach ive been to this semester in Europe, but everyone was wearing clothes and there weren’t that many people to tell you the truth. I mean, the weather was nice, nice enough to wear a bathing suit, but not nice enough to go into the water. We just enjoyed relaxing and soaking in the sun. The only thing that was annoying about being on the beach were the Asians who came around every couple of minutes asking you if you wanted a massage for 5 euros. They would say “Massah-hey!?” and eventually I was like “NOO!!!!” It got SO annoying!

After we left the beach we stopped by a really cool building called ‘Mare Nostrum’ or ‘Gas Natural’ where we took pictures and admired the architecture for a bit. Again, I can’t emphasize enough how many cool public spaces the city had. The way they incorporated vegetation, infrastructure, and architecture into their spaces was very well thought out and effective I thought. That is the one thing about Barcelona I made sure to take note of.

MACBA by Richard Meier

The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art is situated in the Placa dels Angels, in El Raval. Designed by Richard Meier, the buildings architectural style has strong references to Modernism. This large white building has much of its southern elevation glazed, providing the visitor with views across the plaza, and allowing natural light into the interior. It includes a central library, specialized in art books and publications. It may sound like a pleasing space, but my experience was not pleasing at all. When walking to the building, we noticed we were walking through a run-down neighborhood. For heavens sake, it felt like it was night time when it was only late afternoon. The streets were really sketchy and we were catching dirty looks from Spaniards. Anyways, when we approached the site we were quite surprised. The open plaza was littered with teenage kids, all on skateboards or sitting around, doing skateboard tricks and riding around on their skateboard. There must have been 50 of them, all with skateboards. They were using the building to do wall grinds off of. Then, to make matters worse, there were homeless people sleeping next to it. One woman was throwing a fit, grabbing the blanket of a drunk homeless man who had to be her husband or something. They were yelling at each other and making a scene, but no one seemed to take notice except for us. On the other side of the building, in the othe plaza, there were bikers doing tricks and messing around. Talk about an unappreciated use of one of the best examples of modern architecture by one of the most famous contemporary architects. I was constantly watching my back, making sure I didn’t get in anyones way. I barely had time to even notice the building that was in front of me.

Torre Agbar

After walking to Torre Agbar for almost 2 hours, we finally got to the building just as it was getting dark and the building lit up, which was a spectacular array of colors, covering the façade of the entire building in a neat design.

The Torre Agbar is a 33 story tower at Placa de les Glories Catalanes. It was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel in association with the Spanish firm b720 Arquitectos and built by Dragados. It opened in June 2005 and was inaugurated officially by the King of Spain on September 16^th 2005. According to Jean Nouvel, the shape of the building was inspired by Montserrat, a mountain near Barcelona, and by the shape of a geyser rising into the air. Jean Nouvel, in an interview, described it as having a phallic character. Its design combines a number of different architectural concepts, resulting in a striking structure built with reinforced concrete, covered with a façade of glass, and over 4500 window openings cut out of structural concrete. The building stands out in Barcelona; it is the third tallest building in Barcelona, only after the Arts Hotel and the Mapfre Tower, both 154 meters. A defining feature of the building is its nocturnal illumination. It has 3400 LED luminous devices that allow generation of luminous images in the façade. In addition, it has temperature sensors in the outside of the tower that regulate the opening and closing of the window blinds of the façade of the building, reducing the consumption of energy for air conditioning. What an awesome feature! After we visited the Torre Agbar, we got on the metro and headed back to the hostel for the night.

We stayed in the hostel tonight. Unfortunately, the guy from London was gone, but we did meet a group of guys from Mexico who we talked to. They were really funny and they knew how to have a good time. We relaxed on the roof terrace and talked to the girls from Germany and Marie from Argentina. Raphael evened joined us and had a couple smokes before he closed the roof terrace for the night.