¡VIVA ESPAÑA! - Julio 11

WE WON THE WORLD CUP!!!!!

It was so exciting to be here when it all happened. On sunday we convinced our professor to end class early so we could go stake out a table at the local pub. On game days the table spill out into the street and all the bar TV are moved outside. In Guardamar there is a strip of resurants that were all getting ready for the game. We were able to snag a table for eight (even though we sat 12) and ordered pizza a beer. Alex was telling the locals sitting at the table next to us how we were all students here from the United States and they got a kick out of that! They insisted that we all use their facepaint to get ready for the game...we even talked Alex into letting us pain his face haha. The whole day was so exciting. Getting ready for the game reminded me of Cal Game Days (I am excited for football season!)

Tina helped Chtristine make a dress out of a flag we bought haha, it was awesome!

Getting our game faces on! (my new friends Cara and Jen)
Our game watching spot at Papa´s resturant (or in the street outside Papa´s haha)! You can see the others who didn´t get a table fill up the grassy hill behind the street. Alex is the one in blue...good think we got that facepaint on him!

The view from my seat - not too bad! There was no sound but it didn´t really matter because it was all in spanish anyways! All we needed to hear was GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! And we did! There is #6 on the screen! the one who made the winning shot!

After the won the whole town went CRAZY!!!! The waiter gave our table a bottle of champaign that was quickly sprayed in the air and all over us! I felt like it was new years - SO EXCITING!

Celebrating after the WIN!
Group picture of all of our classmates that were IN Guardamar for the game. Half our class was stuck on a bus on there way home from Running of the Bulls. It was a traid off...I was glad I was here instead!

Stopping trafic in the streets of Guardamar. It is usually a pretty quite town...it was cool to see it come to life!
Everyone chants through the streets ¨¡Yo soy español, español, español!¨ Which means ¨I am Spanish!¨ but we can´t say that...because we arn´t spanish haha so we were chanting ¨¡Estoy en España, España, España¡¨ which means I am in Spain haha - no one could even tell the difference!


Celebratory icecream!

¡VIVA ESPAÑA!

Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias - Julio 8

SANTIAGO CALATRAVA!!!!!

Ever since I visited the Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA I have admired Calatrava´s work. He is a world renouned architect, sculptor and structural engineer. Basically, I want to be him when I grow up! His original office is in Velencia where he begain his work but his main office is now in New York. We were able to tour the office and get a personal tour of his work from the head architect of this reagion. It was an opportunity of a life time to get special access into no plublic areas of the buildings. We even got a chance to look at the offical blueprints of some of his work still under construction.

This is the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences complex). It is a park (that used to be a river - hence his stratigic use of water!) on the outskirts of the city that houses 4 of Calitrava´s works. An opera house, planetarium and iMax theatre, interactive science museum and convention center. It was so inpirational to see how his style of organic form and structural simplicity was dirived from the biological form. You can see in his work the structural use of the spine, skull and his studies of the eye. Many elements i observed are making their way into my studio design back in Guardamar. I also had a blast with photography!


Inside the Palau de les Arts Reina Sophia looking out towards the rest of the park.

The Hemisféric with a mechanical sun shade modeled after the human eyelid

Museo on the left with the newest building, Ágora still being built ahead (the blue thing) plus my favorite - the tension bridge! I was able to talk to the architect that was giving us the tour about the bridge. Alex had told him that I studied Structural Engineering so he decided to test me. He asked if I could identify which elements in the bridge were in tension and compression. I passed! he was very impressed...maybe I can get a job there someday!

VALENCIA - Julio 7-10

On Wednesday we took a bus from Altea to Valencia. We got there just in time to watch Spain play Germany in Semi-finals of the World Cup. With all of our luggage we hurried to find a place to watch the game. We could see the jerseys and flags funneling into El Corte Englés (shopping mall) near the bus station. We turned the corner and saw the jumbo screen! We were able to calaim seats right in the front of the plaza for the whole class, we finally got to watch the game all together! Facepainted and high spirited we cheered our team to a victory! The entire city was in a roar - car horns honking, crowds chanting "¡Viva España!", the celbrating didn´t stop until well into the night! It was so cool to be a part of such a monumental moment for España Fúbol - first time to the World Cup EVER!


Or trip to Valencia was primarily to visit the office of Santiago Calitrava...but that deserves it´s own blog post...

After the maditory fieldtrip was over, my roomates and I stayed for an extra day in Velencia. We were able to catch a Flemanco Show Friday night and visit other attractions such as the cathedral, market and train station on Saturday.

Every historical building in Valencia has a cast model out front with a brail explanation of the Architecture. This is part of a city wide effort to enable the blind to enjoy architecture just as the seeing do. I have never seen this done before! One can run their hands over the model and invistion the built form. My uncle Tony would love this!

Flemanco Dancers - We had dinner and a show! We had no idea we would be so close...we also had no idea how INTENSE flemanco dancing is! You could feel the stomping of their feet at your seat! It was absolutely beautiful - a unique combination of fluid motion and strength with live music that gave you chills. Don´t worry J, I took a video for you!

The Fish Market and Train Station

ALTEA - Julio 6-7

For the first leg of our class field trip, Alex took us up to the City of Altea on the Coasta Blanca. It is this quant little artisian town - very mediterranean! It was a beautiful vaction spot for the evening. We didn´t get the day off from schoolwork but who can complain about doing work while overlooking the ocean!?

This is the first time that the entrire class has traveled together instead of just with our roommates for weekend trips. It was nice to get to know other students in the program that I haven´t spent as much time with yet. Our class meetings were on the roof of our hotel - what a view!

CORDABA - Julio 2-3

This past weekend we had another opportunity for 3 day travel. My roommates and I decided to conqure Cordoba and Sevilla, two well known southern towns. After class ended 10pm Thursday night we jumped on an all night bus to Cordoba. We arrived there at 7am Friday morning. My roomate Cara has family in Cordoba so we were able to get picked up from the airport by car (thats rare here!) and go back to their apartment to freashen up. Idediately we headed off to the Mezquita: the last remaining Muslim Mosque in España. In the 13 century it was converted into a Cathlic Cathedral but much of the Islamic architecture is still preserved. The Mosque was just one big room with a forrest of pillars - known for its unique red and white stripped arches. The Cathedral was built right smack dab in the middle of this room which makes for an interesting contrast and a beautiful preservation of Spainish history. I made a video while I was touring the Mezquita but for some reason I can´t get it formatted correctly...when I do, I´ll post it so that you can truely experience the inside of this amazing space. This is one of the buildings I had to memorize for my Architecture History class at Cal, I could always ID it because of the red and white stripes...this building and spain have been synonomous in my head ever sense. It was sureal to see it in person!
Classic Spanish Town, it was so fun just to walk around (SUPER HOT THOUGH!)...you can see the Mezquita in the background.

Bell Tower

Mosque Portion (note the sea of arches)

Cathedral Portion (note the boroque columns and gothic cealing ribbs)

Look how the two styles are flawlessly combined! Experiencing this building was great for our studio design project because we are exploring how to combine the castle ruins with new modern architecture. I hope I can do it this well!

SEVILLA - Julio 3-4

Cara´s Cousin and newly aquainted second cousin seeing us off at the train station.

Saturday morning we took a 45min train from Cordoba to Sevilla arriving there around 11am. After wandering around in the heat we finally found our hostel which ended up being very nice. Being the Architecture Kids we are. we couldn´t wait to get over to the Seville Cathedral. The first true Gothic Cathedral I have ever experienced the inside of. If gives you chills! It was SO HOT in Sevilla after we left the Cathedral, there wasn´t anyone even out on the streets, everyone had retreated for siesta. So what more could we do than spend the next 5 hours shopping in the airconditioning!hehe We knew that the Spain Futbol game was on that night so we were sure to buy Jerseys (I got º9 TORRES because I figued that it was the spanish translation of TURES! Also, my shoe broke so I had no choice but to buy new ones! We found a small pub that was showing the game and watched Spain kick some world cup butt! (good thing because now I get to wear my jersey again haha) We had a good time and saw a lot of the city. I was only a little buimbed that we never made it out of town to see some of Calitrava´s Suspension Bridges...but when you are traveling in a group of four compromises need to be made. Maybe I´ll be back in Sevilla again some day!

Cathedral Tower (37 flights of stairs!)

Some Views from the Tower:

Real Gothic Architecture

The Ceiling of the Cathedral (they placed a mirror angled on the floor just so you can take this picture!)

The Naive. In Arch history we had to memorize the traditional floor plan of Gothic Cathedrals... so we always knew what was coming!

Sunday Morning we visited the Palace of Charles V. It was suprisingly similar to the Alhambra. I am in love with the Islamic tilling. (Also, by accident my purse got in there - I splurged on a real leather satchel! I love it!)

Sunday afternoon we caught a flight home. It was so nice to be in Guardamar again! Only home for 2 days though. I leave in an hour for 4 days in Valencia!

no erasing.

As the first class to experience Arch Studio 101 in España, we had no idea what to expect. At the level of every other studio at Cal we had to enter the studio space with a humbled open mind ready to absorb new creative knowledge. The hope is always that the professor and their respective curriculum will challenge each student’s design aesthetic and abilities. I am pleased to report that this trip has become a worth while experience that has affected me academically and will prove useful to me in the professional realm. The relaxed nature of the Spanish lifestyle would seem to be a perk of the program, but in contrast to the tension of Wurster hall, I was actually unaware of how to approach design from a non-obsessively critical perspective. Then Alex presented the first assignment of the semester with the command:

“There are no mistakes, only evidence of process”.

We were drawing directly on one of our only pieces of presentation paper and we were not to erase…EVER. Each assignment was to be drawn directly on top of the other as to show the process of discovery in your final conclusion. This was a scary endeavor for a perfectionist like me, but given that I was in Spain…I was resolved to relax and go with the flow. Up until now Studio and relaxing have been polar opposites. I have always enjoyed design work but accepted that it would never be stress free. This class has changed everything for me. I have fallen in love with not erasing! If there are NO mistakes then I can NEVER be wrong; and if what flows out of my hand is always right what is there to be stressed about!? Our only mistake would be to stop seeking answers to the questions presented by the site for which we were to design. Twenty-five Berkeley scholars were dropped into an off the map town in a foreign country with nothing but a blank studio store front. Our space has now been transformed into a bustling hub of free-flowing thought and spontaneous design. Being forced to break out of our familiar time constrained lives has given life to rich design concepts habitually suppressed under controlled facades of critiqued students. My outlook is forever changed.