Giant pink sheep in the Puerta de Alcalá

I think the only thing the Puerta de Alcalá is missing is a giant pink sheep. Here's why.

Around November 20th every year, shepherds bring their flocks of sheep directly through the center of Madrid, in between these two stone markers (mojones) on the eastern side of Plaza Alcalá. This is supposed to be quite a scene, and it's a tradition that dates back to 1273 during the time of King Alfonso X. Livestock owners founded an organization that was empowered with keeping open livestock paths throughout the country, enabling the sheep to move between the northern and southern provinces and avoid the cold weather.

The pathway marked at Puerta de Alcalá is one of the last of nine remaining in Spain. If you go to look for the mojones, they are really easy to miss. One is to the left of the entrance to Retiro Park, and the other is on the northeast corner of the Plaza de la Independencia.

All of the livestock paths were of varying width, but the widest at 75.23 meters are knows as cañadas reales (royal livestock passageways). The width between the two markers is ceremoniously measured by the shepherds each time they bring their flock into the city, reasserting their rights and confirming the path established 800 years ago.

So back to my giant pink sheep idea. We all need something that disconnects us from our everyday lives sometimes, and encourages us to see our surroundings in a new way. Madrid, as viewed through the arches of the puerta de Alcalá, soaring up the Gran Via, has an entirely different cadence with a giant pink sheep in the foreground. It allows city dwellers to break from reality and enter a bright, colorful fantasy city.

The installation creates its own narrative while at the same time uncovering an existing, forgotten one. Like the artworks I've posted on this blog, this intervention uses an existing viewpoint, and offers a way to experience the landscape with a point of comparison. The visual comparison is any aspect of the form: color, material, shape, angle, scale, etc. The possible material I could use reminds me of my beloved Breyer horses that I used to play with incessantly as a kid - impossibly smooth plastic.

The giant pink sheep would coincide with the actual running of the sheep in November and there would be at least one where the flock enters Madrid (above), and possibly others at different points along the trail.

Cibeles and the Cathedral of Communications

On Saturday, I decided to explore the area of Madrid surrounding the Cibeles fountain.

Here she is, in all her glory.

The statue is not fully accessible because it's at the center of one of the busiest roundabouts in Madrid, so the best spot to get a photo is from the bus stop on the southern side. The four corners surrounding the fountain is known as the Plaza de la Cibeles, which was mistakenly marked as "Plaza de Cibeles" for a while until the Spanish uproar about the purity of their language. Now the signs properly read "Plaza de la Cibeles".

Cybele is the Goddess of Nature in Greek mythology, and her chariot is drawn by two male lions who have a mythology of their own... An infant girl, Atalanta, was abandoned by her father and left in a basket that floated down the river. The girl was taken in by wild bears who raised her as their own. As she grew older, she reluctantly went to the town to reunite with her father, who subsequently demanded that she marry. However, an oracle had once told Atalanta that she shouldn't marry, because if she did she would be turned into an animal. Needless to say, she really didn't want to get married. Since no one could run faster than her, she decided to require her potential suitor to beat her in a footrace in order to win her hand in marriage. One young man, Hippomenes, fell madly in love with her and decided to enlist the help of the Goddess Aphrodite to win the race. Aphrodite gave him three golden apples to drop on the track during the race. Atalanta couldn't resist the gorgeous apples and, although she was winning the race, she would stop to eat each of the apples as he placed them down. Hippomenes won the race, and they married. It became a passionate and loving marriage, and Atalanta started to think that the oracle's prophesy wouldn't come true. However, one day the couple were out hunting and decided to stop and rest - and make love - in the temple of Zeus. Zeus saw their sacreligous deed and punished them by turning the lovers into lions on the spot. After some time, the Goddess Cybele came upon the lions, and feeling pity for them, hitched them to her chariot so they would always be together.

...The strangest thing about the statue, however, is that the two lions are male. Was it purely an aesthetic decison, or does this maybe give us some insight about the sculptor... ?

At Cybele's feet is a man's face - actually part man, part vegetable - spouting water. Oh, this guy was just Cybele's grandson, Attis, who she fell in love with (not knowing that he was her grandson of course). He was in love with someone else so Cybele vowed to drive him mad. In frustration he fled to the mountains and castrated himself, and died from loss of blood. Cybele felt terrible and resurrected Attis as a pine tree, and he became the God of vegetation, in control of the death and rebirth of plant life. The sculptor Ventura Rodríguez created many pine cone details on the statue, as a reminder of this struggle and resurrection.

When Real Madrid wins a championship, this area is completely blocked off to traffic and the players and fans celebrate here. People used to be able to climb to the top of the statue but because of vandalism, no more. The fans of Atlético de Madrid actually celebrate at another fountain four blocks south of this one.

View of the fountain and La Gran Via from the observation deck

One building looms over the plaza more majestically than the rest. In the JUST recently completed centrocentro, which was converted from the early 20th century Cathedral of Communications into a cultural hub for the city, there are a wide variety of exhibitions from urban planning studies to 9/11 photography. The architecture studio Arquimática did an amazing job of renovating the building with an open, spacious update and maintaining it's historical soul.

So, in 1905 they called it the Palace of Communications but it was actually just the city post office. Apparently the magnificent Renaissance architecture demanded more monumental naming.

One strategic note: if you want to go up to the observation deck, it's necessary to get a ticket on the 2nd floor, and you can only go up at specific times. We had to wait 45 minutes to go up so the best strategy would be to buy the ticket, then walk through the exhibitions, and afterwards head to the 8th floor for your time on the deck. It's worth it, btw.

Palacio de Comunicaciones de Madrid, 1920. Photo from this blog

And today.

A view of the funky glass elevators inside.

And lastly, from the architecture studio responsible for the renovation, this is their creative interpretation of the building tower and it's surroundings.

La Torre. Exposición El Palacio de Cibeles. Arquimática

Dear Blog

Thank you so much for helping me with my first draft of my thesis. Just when I thought I couldn't write another word, you were right there, giving me notes and thoughts from along the way. I just don't know if I could have done it without you. That being said, I need to apologize for neglecting you for the past few weeks. Here's a little snippet from the paper, hopefully this will make up for lost time.

In the Design Issues article, "A Passion for the Real", Jan van Toorn urges communications designers to use their specialized skills to disseminate the messages of corporate culture. He implores us to understand more about the deeper implications of our work because we cannot afford to remain on the surface of matters, blissfully unaware of the symbolic and hidden meaning of the work we create for corporate or political means. Designers should also not underestimate our power to create mythological narratives that could potentially become cultural reality.

Philosopher Jean Baudrillard suggests that the hyperrealism of places such as Disneyland, colonial Williamsburg and New Urbanist communities are reality in America. He believes that “simulation is the creation of the real through mythological models” and that because these places are created from an ideal model expressed through the media, these examples are actually more real than the reality of America.  Especially as we become more dependent on digitally mediated experiences, place making is in the power of the designer, artist, filmmaker and photographer. Because these media have such a strong effect on our experience of place, the boundary between simulation and reality is breaking down.

These mythological models can build place by themselves. The wildly popular show "Sex and the City" built upon truths of New York City, but created an entirely fictional one at the same time. And one that was so believable that people from all over the world would travel to become a part of. Once they arrive in the city, buy the Jimmy Choos and the Manolos and max out their credit cards with trendy meals and cosmopolitans, they realize that the Sex and the City myth is not reality. The stories people tell about a place become more important than the facts, B.D. Wortham-Galvin observes in her essay "Mythologies and Placemaking", because the place gets separated from its context and a new context is put in. She states, "Mythology can become a powerful design tool if deployed judiciously."

       Julius Shulman gave L.A. its history, its best self, and then exported its mythology to the world.
                                                                                      Mary Melton, Los Angeles Magazine

Yours always,
Liz

p.s. Be back soon!