Barcelona in October 4

Park Güell, like many other ambitious projects of Barcelona, was initiated and financed by one of the many well to do citizens, in this case the industrialist Eusebio Güell. The place was intended as an English garden city, hence the spelling of the word Park, with mansions scattered around an elaborate and unique park, according to the unconventional and organic design of Gaudi. The project turned out to be an economic disaster, only two houses were actually built, but the park itself became and is till this day, an immense success. It is the work of a genius homo ludens, breaking all the accepted rules of architecture, plan and layout. Describing it is difficult, but being there is like being outside space and time. Your eyes and mind are constantly challenged and amused, as is your ears, because of all the incredibly gifted musical entertainers performing and adding to the pleasant, careful and playful feel of the park.

Playfulness is also an important aspect of another, but more recent project, the renovated Cosmo Caixa, the science museum. Apart from some oddities when it comes to  entrance area, layout and lack of sensible information about the same, it was a very nice experience. The natural phenomena part was great, but not very different from many other similar exhibitions. The presentation of the development of technology, from the first feeble and accidental efforts by early humans, on the other hand, was refreshing and interesting, suggestion qualities of both humor and empathy.

A huge surprise was the inner part of the museum, an enclosed area comprising a humid rainforest, fully equipped with regular rainfall and a varied flora and fauna. The first we enjoyed a lot, but the latter elicited mixed feelings: The fish were probably all right, although constantly swimming around and around, in a perpetual search for familiar seas and ocean currents. The most likely depressed green anaconda, on the other hand, curled up, immobile in a pool of water, and the poor capybara,, the biggest rodent in the world, melancholy pondering over how it ended up in these backwatersl, had no way of or inclination to behave in a remotely natural way, and might as well have been replaced by replicas.

Like the Einstein and Darwin lookalikes in the reception area, seemingly having a good time discussing, merely taking a five-minute break from further calculations and discoveries.