February 2009 Archives

This has been a much longer and harder winter than normal here in Girona province, nowhere near as bad as in more northerly countries of course, but everything is relative as they say.
Here we have had several epic storms, some of which hit the headlines internationally, along the Costa Brava and inland flooding with very high winds causing extensive tree and roof damage.
Well the good news is that after a walk in the Empordà this week there are finally signs of spring, although it is several weeks behind Barcelona and the Penedes.
The first colour to appear in the countryside is the white almond blossom, closely followed by the pink plum blossom and then in the sheltered areas the spectacular yellow mimosa.
It is also nice to see bees buzzing around as they have been hit by various diseases that have decimated their numbers and the smell of the blossom in the warm sunny days is wonderful.
So, the economy might look like hell but at least we can appreciate the wonders of spring in this beautiful area.

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Sabadell is a town of 200,000 people just to the north of Barcelona and less than an hours drive from Girona. It has  been an important industrial centre ever since the late 19th century specialising in textiles, metalwork and other building materials like bricks, tiles and glass. To show off their new wealth architects were commissioned to build both residential and industrial projects which reflected the Catalan penchant for Modernism.
There are some truly spectacular buildings dotted around the centre of town, and many small details like window shapes or coloured tiles and wrought iron balconies which if you keep your head up you will discover easily. The local banks have done great restoration and preservation work for some of the larger factories which have been transformed into modern offices or exhibition spaces.
From water towers to park benches and lamp posts this urban architecture is still used and hopefully appreciated on a daily basis.

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Barcelona is only an hours drive from Girona and a visit to the exciting urban renewal project that is 22@ is easy to get to from the motorway. The first thing you notice is the cucumber building next to the Glories roundabout and along the Diagonal road there are now dozens of really interesting looking modern office buildings and housing projects which are being built to house some of the best of Spains high tech industry.
The Barcelona city council decided in 2001 to revitalise an old industrial and poor housing area called Poblenou using new urban planning codes to encourage replacing old factories and housing with modern facilities and some public buildings including university research centres and an international conference centre. Established businesses as well as start-ups in growth sectors like media, medical technology, energy research and IT were to form the core of this new environment complemented by parks and with the beach only a short walk away this is a great location. The new station for the high speed train is also being built in this area linking Madrid and Paris in a journey which will only take a few hours from Barcelona when it is finished.
As  with many publicly funded initiatives over the last few years some building speculation by landowners in the area is evident from the empty holes with fences surrounding them but my surprise was that quite a lot has been built already and even more are about to be completed.  With the economy here suffering at least as much as elsewhere, and some would argue more, it will be interesting to see if these new offices are occupied, especially by the start-ups and small businesses that were envisaged at the outset.
Meanwhile, it is a great place to walk around to see how an old and run down part of town gets a second chance, and hopefully the mix of resident, visitor and worker will blend into a really interesting and dynamic part of Barcelona.

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Joseph Beuys (1921-86) a German artist and philosopher has an exhibition of a project which he dedicated the latter part of his life to showing at the Caixa Girona Fontana d'Or gallery. While trying to re-establish man's origins and restoring their bond with nature, he was one of the original thinkers behind what would now be called the environmental movement. Various tree planting projects around the world were meant to inspire a global mission to effect environmental and social change which we could usefully pick up again today.
Through a series of photographs we follow these projects, the first in 1980 on an island in the Seychelles where he planted two protected species of coconut trees to illustrate the alignment of man's intelligence with nature. This symbolic recreation of paradise was followed by the planting of 7,000 trees of endangered species in Bolognano, Italy from 1982-84 and finally his most ambitious project was for the Kassel art fair which took 5 years and again involved the planting of 7,000 oak trees, each tree accompanied by a stone obelix which was meant to seal his pact with nature.
The person who claimed "every man is a potential artist" was a true rebel and original thinker that we are busy re-evaluating and finding plenty of modern day relevance to his ideas on art and nature.

 

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Posted via email from gironaJ