Rocky Sand and Inspiring Museums

It’s hard to believe I have been here for over 10 days now. I am starting to become a lot more comfortable with both Sant Cugat and Barcelona. This week a few of my friends and I even felt comfortable enough to venture out into the city and do some exploring in between our busy class schedule.

After our first day of studio on Wednesday a bunch of us decided to head out to the beach and enjoy the Mediterranean before the weather got cold. The beach was beautiful. Sand a bit rocky, water insanely blue, and EXTREMELY salty. As it turns out, the Mediterranean Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world due to the high temperatures in the region causing evaporation to happen more quickly than in other large bodies of water.

Over the weekend my friend Maddie and I decided that we would do some museum hopping. As someone who has a minor in art and design, but is also studying architecture I love to go to art museums for both the buildings that house the art and the art itself.

The first museum that Maddie and I decided to go to was the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA). The museum was designed by Architect, Richard Meier. Overall, I found the design of the museum extremely well thought out.

You enter the building from a series of ramps that you can find the skateboarders of Barcelona enjoying. Though….. we had to enter through a side door considering a peaceful protest was going on by some of the museum workers on strike at the front door (this made the museum free). Once inside the museum you go up a series of ramps to get to which ever floor you would like, and then go inside corridors on the back side of the building to enter each exhibit.

Lucky for me, one of the exhibits this week happened to be about architecture! The exhibit was called, “Forensic Architecture” and dealt with the ways that architecture impacts other aspects of life. Sections covered architecture and nature, architecture and the ocean, and architecture and government. As a fourth-year architecture student I feel I have a pretty good understanding on how architecture effects the natural environment around us, but it was not until after this exhibit I really realized how much architects and the government work together.

Now, I know architects design a lot of government projects to help make cities and government buildings better for the people working in them, but what I did not realize was much architects were used as an asset military wise.

In one exhibit, (pictured below) there was a reconstruction of a bomb going through a building. The missile pierced through the multiple story building without wavering, but then exploded into a million pieces when it reached the heart of the building. This allowed for the structure to stay intact, but killed anyone hit with a missile fragment. As it turns out, architects help the military reconstruct buildings all the time to see how people were injured in severe cases.

Another exhibit in the building was titled, “God Bless America.” The exhibit by the New York Native, Martha Rosler, critiqued the American Society and war culture through a series of disturbing, yet thoughtful videos. One video I particularly enjoyed was of a child’s toy solider that was supposed to make kids want to go off and fight for America, but the toy was ironically made in China and provoked a false sense of patriotism.

TIP: While going through this exhibit, Maddie and many other people did not put on the headphones because of the germs, but by not putting those on you miss half of what the artist is trying to convey in the videos. SO….. PUT ON THE HEADPHONES. Video artists are often masters with strange audio that give you a complex feeling that the artist wants you to feel, and putting on the headphone with a few germs on them is totally worth it. This way you experience the art to its fullest, and you get a stronger immune system!

The second museum that Maddie and I went to was Museu Picasso. (Free for students) Before going to this Museum, I didn’t know what to expect, I had not had much education on Picasso. A large majority of my studies have focused on more modern artists. After going to the Picasso Museum, I would have to say I am now his number one fan and want to study all his work! Before the Museum security guard came over to yell at me for talking photos I was able to snatch a pitcher of, “The First Communion.” One of his first very influential works to his career.

The layout of museum carefully guides the viewer form his early work to his later work. In his early work, you see that Picasso has had a formal education in the arts and understood the human form expertly at a young age. As he gets older he started to experiment with abstracting the human body, but because of his formal education it is easy to see that all his line work to abstract the body is 100% intentional.

It is incredible how in his cubist period you can still see that through the abstractions he somehow is able to maintain the illusion of perfect perspective. His collect here in Barcelona is a must see to anyone coming to visit, and his work is extremely inspiring. I even tried to sketch a little while I was there to try to learn from the best. (sketch below)

These 2 museums were a great start to the many Museums I know I will be visiting while in Spain. The MACBA for the architecture of the building, and the Picasso museum for the amazing collection of work.

Preview: Look out for my post next week, I will be visiting castles in southern France on a school workshop!