Singularity

"Everything is profitable" -Andrew Smith

Valencia & Tarragona

We went to Valencia and Tarragona during the three-day weekend. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain, and is also one of the busiest ports in Europe! Santiago Calatrava's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias is one of the most famous sites to visit. One could see some of the Antoni Gaudi's influence on Calatrava's works.

Tarragona is a port city that contains some of the most well preserved ruins from Western Roman Empire. The ruins are designated to become a World Heritage Site by UNESCO with good maintenance and tourist-friendly services. Tarragona could set a good example for my hometown, Tainan, since it also contains a lot of temples and fortresses from ancient times.

Palau Güell

​​We visited the luxurious mansion designed by Antoni Gaudí during our history class with Professor Raul. This is a transitional piece of Gaudí since he just started to have his own practice around Barcelona. With this project he was able to slowly transcend Art Nouveau into his own style. There are a lot of details that indicate Gaudí's ambition and creativity in architecture, such as the use of parabolic arches, the variations of steel ornaments, ventilation points, the use of skylights...etc. At this stage of the career, Gaudí had not yet started to think about human's physical interactions to the building. The railings and door knobs are still in regular Art Nouveau style whether as later on in his project, Casa Batllo, the railings and door knobs are designed to fit human's hand-hold position.

On-site sketches and notes

Left image: Instead of using a tradition L-shape steel piece, the delicate Art Nouveau twist is where the detail is at.
Right image: Placing ventilation openings under the stairs for the space beneath.

Studio progress this week!