Word: calatrava
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...YSIOS Visitors to Ysios' new bodega, set against the spectacular backdrop of the Sierra de Cantabria that shields the Rioja vines from northwesterly winds, may feel like wine pilgrims. Architect Santiago Calatrava has created a cathedral-like building with undulating curves that echo a row of barrels. www.bodegasysios.com...
...opera house, spectacular though it may be, really transform a city best known for its paella and beaches into a top arts center? Can Calatrava's magnificent edifice produce the Bilbao effect - doing for Valencia what Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum did for the industrial Basque city to the north...
...Palau is certainly a worthy effort and just part of Valencia's quest, one that's even bolder than Bilbao's famous gamble. The opera house is the final piece of the immensely popular City of Arts and Sciences, a complex of beautifully integrated white buildings, most designed by Calatrava, that includes a planetarium with IMAX cinema and laser dome, a science museum, a botanical garden and Europe's biggest marine park. "An art museum draws a fairly narrow audience, while the City of Arts and Sciences appeals to a much wider range of people," says Julio...
...Fair enough, but, with its three halls seating 4,000 people, including some 1,700 in the main auditorium, the Palau is the crown jewel. Calatrava himself described the 40,000-sq-m building as the culmination of 14 years' work. "This project is the most intense, the one I've devoted most time to," he said. "It represents a correlation between spectator, musician and artist." With its ample rehearsal and performance spaces, as well as its fine acoustics (Calatrava brought in his own team to ensure their quality), the Palau holds obvious appeal for any musical performer...
...Calatrava's passion for the project is particularly notable because opera is, in many places, a dying art. Long-established houses like Milan's La Scala, Berlin's Deutsche Oper and even New York City's Met struggle to fill seats. The reasons for opera's slow decline are legion. Classical music critic and consultant Greg Sandow points to governments' dwindling support of the arts, a paucity of singers with the ability to perform the standard repertoire, and above all, audiences that look elsewhere for entertainment...