Photo. Hemispheric in Valencia. The aerodynamic shape and a few decorative wings make it look like an all-terrain space vehicle. © Alex Welsh, Valencia Tourist Information, Spain - www.valenciavalencia.com.
So the new list of today’s Wonders of the World is about to come out. I found it bizarre that the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia wasn’t one of the contenders. Machu Picchu, Petra, Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, all undoubtedly wonders of the world, but how about thinking a little outside of the box?
Does a Wonder have to be ancient? This contest is an exciting project amongst the now enormous travelling community on the planet, but it does take after the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. And as far as I remember most of those Wonders were very much contemporary to the historians who recorded them. Most of them were an embodiment of progress and contemporary civilisation, not a time machine.
Like I said, I think the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia would fit in with that concept quite nicely.
It isn’t just one of the most stunning, amazing, impressive, whatever other superlative you can fit here, things I have seen. It is also a fascinating twist, a truly original idea, no less than an entire paradigm shift.
Everyone has seen Baroque, Renaissance, Gothic...how much of it can you see before it all starts looking same but different? Huge ruins like Chichen Itza or Machu Picchu still impress mainly due to their size or how difficult it was for their creators to build them without today’s machinery. But here is a new thought: we have just come back from a trip where we thoroughly enjoyed 23rd century architecture… that’s something different, isn’t it? Just the courage and ambition of the idea is enough to get one’s attention. What do you do if you don’t have an impressive complex a few hundred years old? You build one which is a few hundred years away!
The City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia is an enormous futuristic leisure complex designed by the renowned superstar of futuristic architecture, Santiago Calatrava. Calatrava happens to be one of Valencia’s sons, so his most marvellous creation is his gift to his home city.
The City of Arts and Sciences lies in the Turia gardens – a river bed which was transformed into 9 km of lush greenery, following the diversion of the river course after a particularly bad flood in 1950s. It is truly a city within a city – once you are here you leave Valencia, you find yourself on the grounds of some distant space base. Huge constructions of white frameworks and glass, in most curious shapes, are surrounded by clear blue open water reservoirs and designer lawns.
The City of Arts and Sciences is composed of five elements. As you approach the City the first thing that comes into your view from far, far away is the flagship of the complex – Palau de les Arts. At 70 metres high (an average 20-25 storey building) and in the shape of a giant eye, it is an awe-inspiring prototype of alien Big Brother. As you come closer the glass foyers underneath, reminiscent of space-ship decks, finalise your arrival into sci-fi.
The Palau is, in fact, an opera house with four auditoriums for classical music and stage arts.
Behind the Palau, in the blue vastness of water, lies the Hemispheric – a smaller glass-flaked dome with sides that slide open, covering with its framework a perfect white ball, like a storage container for a nuclear-core material. The aerodynamic shape of the Hemispheric and a few decorative wings make it look like an all-terrain space vehicle. The core of the Hemispheric is in fact an IMAX cinema theatre.
The Hemispheric is followed by the Museum of Sciences – a giant intermesh of frames with claws and thorns sticking out of it in tidy rows. At 50m high this structure houses three huge floors of interactive science exhibitions.
These last two structures are bordered by L’Umbracle – a tube of a futuristic greenhouse with a tropical promenade inside and rows of decorative ceramic vents all along it. It is good to know where we will keep the remaining greenery in two or three hundred years.
This article continues in part 2. Click on the link for reading more about the futuristic wonders in Valencia: The City of Arts and Sciences – Travel to 23rd Century - Part 2 of 2!
Alex Welsh, 7 June 2007
Additional information
Alex is the webmaster of Valencia Travel Information - an independent resource on travelling in Valencia, Spain - www.valenciavalencia.com.
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