Tag: madrid

Postcard from Madrid, Spain: Kaleidoscopic colors cross cultural divides

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Artist Federico Guzman transforms the 1887 Palacio de Cristal in the middle of Retiro Park into a prism of patterns and colors imported from the Sahara. His installation, Tuiza, is framed by an enormous Bedouin tent, a khaima, designed to spark interactions among people of diverse backgrounds in an hospitable setting.

The sides of his tent are formed with melhfas, traditional costumes worn by women of the Sahara. Women from the refugee camp of Bokhador worked with the artist directly to design and dye the fabrics.

The geometric patterns of the khaima and the more freestyle patterns of the melhfas explode kaleidoscopically when reflected in the glass with park surroundings and patterns and shadows created by the iron framework of the Crystal Palace.

Tuiza continues through August 30.

Postcard from Madrid, Spain: Showstopping Toppers

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They are like architectural banana peels.

It’s as though the designers want to make you trip as they entice your eyes upward to the tops crowning their creations.

The streets of Madrid are lined with countless of these dangerous distractions demanding your attention.

You long to amble along her boulevards awkwardly gawking for hours day after day after day.

Postcard from Toledo, Spain: A Cathedral fit for a royal capital

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When Alfonso VI (1040-1109) of Castile captured Toledo from the Moors in 1085, he made the hilltop city his capital. Although royals moved their seats around Spain and Portugal, the city benefitted from the rule of numerous kings.

Construction of the city’s Gothic Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, was begun in 1227. The main six-story central carved altar, bookended by royal tombs, was added around the year 1500.

Felipe II (1527-1598) stroke a blow signaling the city’s decline in importance when he moved the capital permanently to Madrid in 1561.

Although Toledo’s population is around 80,000, every day thousands of visitors jostle through the crowds filling the narrow streets in the historic part of the city to tour the Cathedral. Fortunately, there is ample room inside to accommodate a crowd. The main nave alone is both longer and wider than an NFL football field.

When we were in the Cathedral, most of the area near the main altar was roped off for temporary seating for an evening organ concert. Disappointing yes, but, holy Toledo, the pipes resounding through that enormous space must have been magnificent.