A Delicate Question Best Answered by residents of SdC (Ivar Help!)

[scruffy1]

I visited Cidade da Cultura de Galicia maybe three years ago and I am very well aware of the many controversies surrounding the site. It was an eye-opening excursion into ultra-modern architecture which must be seen to be believed at a price which must be seen to be believed as well plus the sad fact that Santiago cannot be seen from there. A sight more impressive after a month of most enjoyable medieval joy. Has work continued on the site? More buildings erected. Total shutdown? What has happened to Cidade da Cultura de Galicia in the interval?

 

[Melensdad]

Unfinished, unaffordable and unloved.

Link => https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Culture_of_Galicia

 

[mspath]

The City of Culture complex in Santiago de Compostela was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenman. Since it's first conception in 1999 the project has passed through a great many philosopical and physical changes. For Eisenman the idea of a museum/archive implies both a container and its content. Nearby hills were echoed in the giant curves of his design. Earlier this year at last the content of the exhibit, The Way, the Origin, although temporary and scheduled to close mid September 2015 finally tied this structure to the extraordinary past history of its location overlooking the Camino.

 

[peregrina2000]

I don´t think there has been any more work done, and I think some of the buildings are sitting empty, but the building where I saw an exhibit on the Oronoco tribes of Brazil a few years ago has a schedule of exhibitions.

Ivar mentioned a few months back, I think, that there was an exhibit on the Camino, and the calendar confirms that. Only two weeks left, closing Sept. 13, and admission is free for the last two weeks. http://www.cidadedacultura.gal/es/evento/camino-el-origen

 

[Rebekah Scott]

I was there in the spring. It is a mournful place, with weeds growing up through the seams in the sidewalks. Even the exhibition cited above seemed half-baked, dwarfed by the bombastic concrete bunkers all 'round it. It's a monument to the waste and corruption of Spain's now-busted building boom.

 

[peregrina2000]

It's a monument to the waste and corruption of Spain's now-busted building boom.

Would you take a friendly amendment to that sentence? How about "It's an architecturally interesting monument to the waste and corruption of Spain's now busted building boom." I'm guessing the answer is no, since you referred to the "bombastic concrete bunkers" . I did think some of the buildings in the complex were nice, and some of the materials used are very pretty as well, don't you think? I thought it would make a good skateboard park, lots of curves and loops, and that would keep down the weeds.

 

[fraluchi]

Beauty judged through the eyes of the beholders

 

[peregrina2000]

Beauty judged through the eyes of the beholders

Beholders --- Behold!

 

[Kanga]

I'm interested to know what is happening with the Monte de Gozo site. It looked abandoned when we walked past in June. Is the huge albergue still functioning?

 

[peregrina2000]

Now that's an idea. They could move the albergue into the Cidade da Cultura. I did read somewhere that the Xunta had ended its contract with the concessionaire and that most of the albergue was closed.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

In my opinion, the biggest problem is access to the site. I have wanted to go evey time I have been in Santiago, but the bus service to get there is almost non-existant, so I sadly stay local. Then therés the fact that this in no Fank Ghery or Pei work. Pushing boundaries is phenomenal, is you have talent. Then again, their is also the abandoned cemetary in Fisterra, created by a well renowned avant-garde architech, but the villagers want to be burried in the old cemetary.

 

[peregrina2000]

In my opinion, the biggest problem is access to the site. I have wanted to go evey time I have been in Santiago, but the bus service to get there is almost non-existant, so I sadly stay local. Then therés the fact that this in no Fank Ghery or Pei work. Pushing boundaries is phenomenal, is you have talent. Then again, their is also the abandoned cemetary in Fisterra, created by a well renowned avant-garde architech, but the villagers want to be burried in the old cemetary.

Hi, Anemone,
It's actually a pretty nice walk and you can see the old Sar River bridge and the romanesque church on the way. You'll be walking on the road that the Vdlp enters Santiago on. Go down from Praza da Galiza, get on the Rua do Sar, and cross the bridge, then you'll a see a sign pointing up a hill on the left. No traffic on the road since no one goes up there. It's between 30-45 minutes.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Hi, Anemone,
It's actually a pretty nice walk and you can see the old Sar River bridge and the romanesque church on the way. You'll be walking on the road that the Vdlp enters Santiago on. Go down from Praza da Galiza, get on the Rua do Sar, and cross the bridge, then you'll a see a sign pointing up a hill on the left. No traffic on the road since no one goes up there. It's between 30-45 minutes.

Walk?! Surely not! But ank you for giving me directions to it, in all seiousness.

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Don't get me overly wrong. I really love the way the Ciudad de Cultura works in its environment. It looks fabulous up there, tucked against the hillside and following the curves of the land like it grew up there naturally. It does not work up-close. It has never found its function, and people do not go there or use it. It is all form and no function, and in that sense it fails as architecture.

 

[CaminoDebrita]

I love the idea of the architecture following the forms of the mountain, but do find your "all form and no function" comment to be intriguing, Reb. Buildings are meant to have a function; they are not to be merely regarded as art--otherwise, the land should have been left alone.

In Phnom Penh, the Hotel Le Royal was restored to its original splendor after many years vacant. So too was the swimming pool and exercise facility, although when I was riding the exercise bike and gazing at the pool, I could not shake the image of people being forcibly marched there to be executed.

Seriously, back to this structure: I hope that someone can scrape together the money and interest to give it a function. It is intriguing. Skateboarding down the top? Yikes---that would be quite a ride, and a little scary to consider!

 

[ivar]

I'm interested to know what is happening with the Monte de Gozo site. It looked abandoned when we walked past in June. Is the huge albergue still functioning?

This was in the new the other day! It has now been taken over by the Xunta again. Not sure what the future holds, but hope some money will be invested there.

 

[ivar]

As far as I know there is no new money being invested there (wise I think). So no more new construction for now. I just hope that there is a budget for maintenance, since there was a piece in the paper the other day about some of the stone tiles needed to be changed out, and it seems they were expensive

 

[whariwharangi]

Now I 'grok' 'white elephant'.

 

[Deleted member 22638]

I'm interested to know what is happening with the Monte de Gozo site. It looked abandoned when we walked past in June. Is the huge albergue still functioning?

I stayed there this May. Only one of the many blocks were open and we were directed on a route from the JPII memorial rather than through the old main enterance .

The hospitaleros were great and the facilities very good - but none of the facilities in the main open area were available -

 

[jmcarp]

Would you take a friendly amendment to that sentence? How about "It's an architecturally interesting monument to the waste and corruption of Spain's now busted building boom."

The other monument to the busted building boom is Cirueña, the practically ghost town of vacant homes and condos between Azofra and Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Debrita, if you look at the form/function statement, you will see we are both saying the same thing.
You don't invest millions in a building unless you know what it's meant to do. It has to have a clear use, a function. You don't build something pretty and then hope someone comes up with something to do there. "Form Follows Function," as Louis Sullivan said.
Sadly, one-time "functions" like housing thousands of kids for a papal visit fail to hold up to the test of time... thousands of people don't want to hang out at Monte de Gozo at one time, and thus the boondoggle. You'd think they'd have learned from that, but along came the Ciudad de Cultura idea, with all that "free money" from the EU and the ego massage that some public figures get when a truly monumental project comes off successfully on their watch...
And here we are again, with another big white elephant on the hill outside of town.

 

[Pelegrin]

A Cidade da Cultura was an idea of President of Xunta Manuel Fraga that started, in 1999 the following Holy Year after 1993 that can be considered the date when the Camino de Santiago was relaunched.
Manuel Fraga was the main promoter of the current Camino de Santiago that everybody agrees is very important in the Galician economy. Eventually the Cidade da Cultura has resulted in a expensive mistake, but initially I think that everybody was confident in Fraga's new idea. In my opinion, the great work that Manuel Fraga carried out in Galicia largely compensates this mistake.

 

[Jools]

I walked there to see the exhibition on the Camino back in July and it was really difficult to walk to, no signs, no paths and all fenced off and yet it would be an easy pleasant walk for any pilgrim, the enthusiastic and knowledgable guy on the desk was apologetic and said they were working on a program to get a walking path there, it is a desolate place and is as yet still unfinished (although apparently it does have a cafe) I agree it would be a great location for a municipal hostel which may bring it to life

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Don Manuel Fraga was a lot of things to a lot of people, but "the main promoter of the modern Camino de Santiago?" No. He was a tourism promoter, and an old-line Fascist who made his career serving under Franco. He sold Fascist Spain to sunshine-hungry northern Europeans who looked the other way, politics-wise, and preferred to see only the plastic PR version of Spain sold along with their Costa del Sol timeshares.
Franco and Fraga were both native Gallegos, they loved the Camino de Santiago, and promoted it as a family holiday you could take in the car or on the bus -- the big granite waymarks and a few of the tall Santiago crosses are still visible along the N-120. Franco was an idealist, he used the Santiago cross as a personal symbol, and saw himself as the latter-day Matamoros, and promoted Santiago de Compostela and the pilgrimage as icons of good flag-waving, conservative, Roman Catholic Spain. (many Spanish people still see the red Santiago cross and say it makes them think of the Generalissimo.)
The Camino de Santiago as we know it now blossomed well after Franco's death. Fraga didn't paint any yellow arrows, or promote pilgrim spirituality... but he handled the Xacobeo-style packaging of it -- the camino starts at the Galician border, it's all about bagpipes and Caldo Gallego, flaming botafumeiros and Monte de Gozo pilgrim palaces: packing as many consumers as possible into that last 100 kilometers.
I suspect he had something to do with the "100km. rule" that's turned the road from Sarria into Pilgrim Disneyland in recent years.
But I am cynical.

 

[Urban Trekker]

As far as I know there is no new money being invested there (wise I think). So no more new construction for now. I just hope that there is a budget for maintenance, since there was a piece in the paper the other day about some of the stone tiles needed to be changed out, and it seems they were expensive

Is this along the same lines as the defunct airport that was built and never used and just sold for less that pennies on the Dollar.