Birds and architects

Valencia was the cradle for one of the most poetical and birdlike architects ever. The weaver bird makes a fabulous architectural nest, Calatrava and with him many others, are inspired in Valencia to create the most poetical architecture ever seen together.

On this trip to Valencia, we are stopping in Elche and in Cartagena. It will be a quest that will take us through the art history of Spain showing us the best of Iberian art, Roman architecture, the Arab culture, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Baroque, Modernism and modern architecture. You will see what meets the eye when travelling from Nerja to Valencia, including 3 world heritage sites, works of several prizewinning architects and several mayor art collections, including Sorolla, El Greco, Goya and Picasso. We will investigate different kinds of weaving the past and the present. Just to give a few examples:

• The Spanish architect Moneo, in his prizewinning project in Cartagena for the Teatro Romano, renovated old buildings and gave them new functions and connected them with new modern buildings with tunnels and escalators.
• The spectacular baroque ceramic museum in Valencia, was renovated and extended a century later in the same style: neo baroque.
• Calatrava uses techniques paying homage to the past, to Gaudi, using broken mosaics and to the ceramic past of Valencia.
• Japanese architects, in a prizewinning project to renovate the museum of modern art in Valencia, are putting a whole glass skin over the old building, keeping the past intact.
• The cathedral in Valencia took 6 centuries to build, you can read the history of art in this one building, every century a new part is added to the building in a new style.