Valencia | Calatrava

The City of Arts and Sciences, developed by Santiago Calatrava, is a large-scale urban recreation center for culture and science which also incorporates L’Oceanogràfic, an underwater city designed by the late Felix Candela. Set in the old dried-up river bed of the Turia, midway between the old city of Valencia and the coastal district of Nazaret, the City of Arts and Sciences covers an area of 350,000 square meters. Designed almost entirely by Valencia born Santiago Calatrava, the architecture of all the buildings use pure white concrete and Gaudiesque fragments of shattered tiles, an important Valencian industry, tie all the structures together as a whole. (from Arcspace).


The opera house (El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía... fancy names) is off limits to mundane visitors like me. Cut off the ground, and look upon the staff hanging out on its foyers, and it looks like a futuristic spaceship flying into the vast open sky, like one of those fantasy paintings.


The front half kinda looks like a giant mask of the Jedi from Starwars. Don't you think so?


I was hanging around the complex until 10pm, three hours after the closing time, for the L’Hemisfèric, the eye looking building, to lit up. But it didn't. The opera house did though!


Look at it in real life, and observe that this white bridge has plenty of gentle curves that creates a perspectival distortion that enhances its elegance. Ooooh.


Porticoes by the opera house. I wonder if this plain looking facades actually cost more than the expensive, pastiche renaissance, marble ones. Hmm.


Science Museum Principe Felipe, the plainest out of the strange companions?


Inside: A giant pendulum on a giant atrium, with a giant DNA helix at the back (every science center seems to have one these days). Come to think of it, with all, the museum looks like a giant cage of science toys.


Triangular lobby. I like how the arrangement of the gift shop (left, 1st foor), and office (left, 2nd floor) has worked out.


View from the 3rd floor. To the left is a series of many sciency gadgentry (in case you're wondering... a sliced human heart, three legged chickens, 3-d hologram illusions, machines you can jump on and measure the quantity of water in your body, a smell-tester rack, and bla bla blaa).


L’Hemisfèric from the outside. There is a super-wide angle, spherical IMAX theatre inside the eyeball of this building. Went to watch the coral reefs show. Lovely images... though I wish they'd stop playing the distracting 70s music in the background!


From inside the eye.


L’Oceanogràfic is the largest aquarium complex in Europe; and this is its mussels looking headquarters.


A welcoming smile from the local spoonbill waterfowl!


Tropical fish display room. My second favorite fish tank in the aquarium, second to the one that hosts the school of jackfish and a lone giant 2m sun fish. Anyhow, this room has a fancier boat-like shape. It also has an interesting set up that enables you to do a comparison between the tropical seas: the right hand side displays south east asian tropical fish, the left hand side displays Caribbean tropical fish. Good ambiance for a fancy (seafood) restaurant.


Fish of the south east asia tropical seas. The wide, single-piece, concave aquarium glass is an impressive craftsmanship. It makes the aquarium feel more approachable, as compared to the regular straight kind.


Jelly fish. Wonderful, elegant, serene display of jelly fish... ah, if only the kickin' n' screaming tour groups of children would stop kissing the aquarium glass!


Mermaids!!! Stuff that the sailors of the past fall in love with: hunks of gray-blue meat.