Wednesday, December 08, 2010

A Little Night Music...In Spain


El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia Opera House, Spain.  November 2009
(Click picture to enlarge)
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"The architect must not only understand drawing, but music." ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
We've been looking at "night" pictures this week in Carmi's Theme and they have all been lovely. Without "light", however, there can be no "night" pictures or "darkness" pictures. All of the most amazing pictures taken at night have light as a focus point... the reflected light of the moon, candlelight, fireworks, the lights of a city at night and so on. Light not only dispels the night's darkness, it gives it shape and form; light makes the night... visible and memorable.

This opera house in Valencia, Spain is an amazing feat of modern architecture designed by Santiago Calatrava. In daylight its concrete and steel form covered with crushed tiles is said to suggest a large warrior's helmet or the cross between an immense seagoing vessel and an alien spacecraft. It is huge, containing four performance spaces with a total of 4,000 seats. My brother performed in an opera here in 2009 and took this nighttime picture. The light makes all the difference in this photo... it brings a magical quality to the scene; the golden roadways leading to a silvery spacecraft... a huge "eye" in the middle of the city. The center "pupil" of the eye is reflecting the city itself or perhaps shows the cityscape of its home world. All the mystery this evokes... the architect did his job well!

(end of post)
Carmi's Theme ~ Night

6 comments:

Sandra said...

you are so right. the light is the magic in this, incredible shot and oh so beautiful. i love things that glow with light as you might know by visitng my blog over past few days. 4000 is a lot of seats and i bet the acoustics are fantastic

Ginny Hartzler said...

Oh my goosness, I was stunned when I saw this!! Where was your brother standing to get this perspective, somewhere high I think. I clicked on this to get a better look, where do the people sit? Is it up in that top part?

Carmi said...

Too blown away to say much of consequence. Yes, the architect did his job well. So did the photographer. Capturing this scene with such, how to say it, pop, is a herculean achievement with a lens. If your brother ever gives up on the stage, there's a career in photography waiting for him.

Seriously, wow!

colleen said...

Like something out of "The Jetsons." I love it!

Rambling Woods said...

How beautiful the city looks with all the lights....

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