Architecture that tells a story

Madrid definitely has an eclectic mix of architecture, as I've already posted a few examples of (lizard and wedding cake buildings, most ostentatious belle epoque, and Herzog and de Meuron's masterpiece). You can really get a feel for the history of Spain, just by walking around and observing different architectural influences over the centuries. Unfortunately, few examples remain of the rich mudéjar style developed by the Moors that I lavished in on my trip to Andalucía. Some of the only reminders of the Muslim origins of Madrid are the remaining pieces of the Muralla Árabe (Arab Wall).

There are some fascinating and seemingly forgotten old buildings if you can find them, tucked away next to sober dictatorship-era construction. One of the sites that caught my imagination was this ancient construction, which has been converted into the Biblioteca Escuelas Pías (Pious school library). It's located in Lavapiés, the old Jewish barrio, where there are some sites related to Inquisition history that I will post about next.

And characteristic of Madrid, it's juxtaposed next to this odd urban plaza straight out of a post-Modern dream. By the way, this is not a great neighborhood and I wouldn't recommend walking around here at night, but this is a fascinating area with so much history and worthy of a daytime exploration.

Plaza de la Villa

The intimate Plaza de la Villa on Calle Mayor is one of Madrid's more notable example's of Madrid-style baroque architecture (barroco madrileño), with wonderfully preserved buildings on all three sides. This square was the permanent seat of the Madrid city government from the Middle Ages, until they relocated to the Palacio de Comunicaciones in recent years.

On the eastern side of the square is the 15th century Casa de los Lujanes, a Gothic construction with clear mudéjar influence. The brickwork tower is said to have housed the imprisoned French monarch Francois I and his sons after the Battle of Pavia in 1525. As the prisoner was paraded down Calle Mayor, it was said that locals were more impressed with the lavishly attired Frenchman than his captor the Spanish Habsburg emperor Carlos I.

This is the really cool and creepy door to the tower - it's on the northern side of the building as you curve around a tiny street that feeds into the plaza.

Is anyone as obsessed as I am with the Google street maps photos option? It lets you see different viewpoints, times, and seasons simultaneously in one place, and it even tries to match the perspective of the photo, creating a new three-dimensional plane for the various contributions. How cool.

A few thoughts on storytelling

In my field I hear the word storytelling a lot. What is it exactly? Storytelling is a verbal journey that a companion or complete stranger is able to lead us on. It's a tool to connect us all - regardless of creed, color or background - on a human level. The deepest level. It makes us realize that we're not all so different.

In November I was working on a brand redesign and thought that the identity would be so much stronger if the founders of the business would tell their story. How did the business develop, what is their inspiration and what were the challenges they faced? Every business in the world should be this transparent if they want to reach their potential customers on the deepest level. Stories stick with us, effect us, and change our behavior.

I'm fascinated by the way my experience of places changes once I know the story behind the walls. I want to create a platform for people of Madrid to be able to share their stories, and I'm sure they have lots of them. The site will be place-based and, ideally, it will point out that our surroundings are more connected to our life stories than we may realize.

There are a few precedents that I enjoy very much for different reasons. I've written about Jonathan Harris' creation, Cowbird, here, and here is the story that I contributed to the site a few days ago. The 'saga' is the defining principle of Cowbird, which for now the only one being Occupy Wall Street. Further down in the site hierarchy there are many other defining principles; people, relationships, subject tags, loved, etc. This is a layered and complex site, but SO beautiful and easy to navigate.

The stories are gorgeous and touching. Harris has given artists, poets and journalists a safe space to express their otherwise private moments. The website is turning into a smorgasborg of love, pain, longing and curiosity. There is this great capability of adding sound to the story as well. Something that this author has done really well. I feel so comfortable contributing to the site because I know that the most important thing is that my contribution comes from my heart.

Before I moved to Madrid, over the past year or so I noticed this 'pod' outside of City Hall ('pod' being a term from one of my architecture-ish classes).

Designed by Local Projects, a design studio in NYC, Storycorps booths give people the opportunity to sit down and record their life story in forty minutes. Especially significant because of the ten year anniversary of 9/11, many of the stories were from family of the victims who used the opportunity to connect others with the memory of their loved one.

Local Projects works on a plethora of storytelling projects, including this video for Stone Barns and this platform for people to tell tales of their center of town. As long as it's called "Main Street" people can submit photos, audio and written accounts of what happens on their Main Street. Local Projects is a studio of master storytellers with the ability to create meaning from a conversation, and to turn a conversation into an event. They call these projects collaborative storytelling, and it's very interesting to me that the most important aspect of their success lies with other people's ability to listen.

New York Writes Itself is a 'production' about New York by the people of New York. As they say, you can't make this shit up. The 'script' is an running Twitter-ish feed of random contributions from people all around New York City. I like the brief format with a steady stream of updates, and love the tone of the site (I mean, just check out the chairman), but I wish there was more imagery - there would be some really good photos to complement the anecdotes of the city. This site definitely has the cool-factor, and the theme capitalizes on NYC being the film-making capital of the world. I also enjoyed seeing the recent collaboration with letterpress artists recently shown at the Art Director's Club.

So what is all this? It's not about advertising, branding or selling products. It's about finding what is most important in each of our individual lives, maybe understanding each other and our environments a little better, and possibly restoring some of our faith in humanity.

Imagenes

Gareth Moore, Childrens Films

introspective.org.uk

Play, Space and Place

I so thoroughly enjoy artwork that changes the way we view our cities. Similar to the artists I talked about in this previous post, Chris Martin and Arnaud LaPierre are two artists asking us to rethink our city experience. It's not about focusing on or changing small details in our environment, but more of a feeling of who we are as city-dwellers and how we define ourselves in relation to our surroundings.

Chris Martin, "East River Williamsburg," Brooklyn, 2005. Image via Eflux,
Courtesy Chris Martin, KOW BERLIN, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, Foto: Donna Alberico

With this installation Chris Martin used pop colors and unusual shapes to bring our attention to the comparison - artwork vs. skyline. We compare the colors and shapes of his work to the backdrop of the New York city skyline, and it offers the possibility of breaking from reality into a color-coded fantasy city. Yes please!

Arnaud LaPierre, "The Ring Installation"
on the Place Vendome in Paris

Images from MocoLoco

Arnaud LaPierre uses mirror cubes to emphasize the connection of people with their surroundings, and the results are this gorgeous funhouse in the middle of Paris. It transforms many Parisian's everyday walk, and gives them a chance to ponder who they are in relation to their city. I really need to see this btw.

The installation plays with the concept of place. As James H Kunstler tells us in this entertaining TED talk, "Your ability to create places that are meaningful ... depends entirely on your ability to define space with buildings, and to employ the vocabularies, grammars, syntaxes, rhythms, and patterns of architecture in order to inform us who we are." LaPierre isn't defining space, instead he's distorting and fragmenting it, and placing us right in the center of the urban landscape, encouraging people to take a break from their usual routine and play with the sense of place.