Spaceship Valencia

CoAS at night

Imagine that you are the mayor of a major city with a busy port on the Mediterranean coast. The city’s rich history and culture together with its golden beaches and turquoise waters already make it an ideal destination for tourists. The city also hosts high profile sports events like ATP Men’s Tennis tournament and America’s Cup, the most celebrated and expensive yacht race in the world. What do you do next? 

Agora

a) Nothing.  If something’s not broken why fix it?

b) Never miss a photo opportunity with the visiting celebrities for your Ego Wall.

c) Start a 10-year project to build an arts and sciences centre together with a huge aquarium showcasing all marine life on the planet, not to mention a beautiful opera house, among other things.

If you’re the mayor of Valencia, you choose option ‘c’ and add another 4 million tourists and couple of hundred million euros each year to your city’s annual earnings, while putting it on the map as a major center of research and education.

Hemispheric

The City of Arts and Sciences (CoAS) is a complex of buildings housing a science museum, an opera house, the Agora to host major sports events, the Oceanographic with its range of aquariums from all the seas and oceans on earth, the Hemispheric with its IMAX and 3-D movie theatre and the Umbrace for art installations and private parties. In addition to the usual fast food places, it also has its own gourmet restaurants and bars. The whole complex is surrounded by pools and parks offering the citizens with many sports and recreational facilities.

CoAS  is not just impressive because of its space-age architecture or the facilities it offers. Almost all large cities have all or most of the same. It’s impressive because the entire complex was planned from scratch in such a cohesive way that the end result is not only functional but also chic and cool. As a result people with different interests, from school groups and families to culture vultures and city’s young & beautiful find something to enjoy in their own spaces, just like in a real city.

Chilling out with mojitos

Thanks to it – at least for me- Valencia is not just another seaside town with a nice cathedral but a city I would like to revisit again, just to check what its creative management comes up with next to make the city more attractive.

I remember a certain other politician who was claiming that if every mayor in every town starts distributing coal and freebies to his citizens, the country will ‘fly’. I’m sure he’s also right.