Blanco White sent us a lovely essay about his love for architecture and the Spanish city of Cadiz.
My fascination with architecture really began whilst I was living in Cádiz in southern Spain in my early twenties. It’s an ancient city, around 4000 years old, and because it’s situated at the end of a narrow peninsula, it feels as though you are on an island while you are there. The thing I fell in love with most was the light in that city, especially in the winter months where there is a clarity and brilliance that is very striking for an outsider more used to the dark of a northern European winter. But what makes the light so spectacular is really its interaction with the old city’s architecture. The white coloured buildings are bright, almost dazzling when lit up by the the sun, and the high contrast created by their shadows is dramatic and clean cut. The shapes of these shadows never quite feel the same from day to day, shifting with the passage of the sun, and that constant motion gives you the sense that you are always discovering the city. It can simultaneously make it feel labyrinthine, with its random narrow streets, and hidden pockets of open space in the form of plazas and alamedas.
The architecture of the city pays close attention to the street level experience, but its true beauty comes from its multiple levels on the vertical axis. As you ascend, the thousands of balconies offer new perspectives looking down into the streets until you reach the rooftops. It is here that the city opens up, and you leave behind any sense of being in a maze. Surrounded on all sides by the sea, the feeling of being on an island returns, and the whitewashed cube like rooftops feel more North African than European. Even for people who live in Cádiz, venturing out onto this sky level always remains special, even if it is just to hang up your washing. The highest towers of the city have remarkable views; they occupy their own realm within it, one I’ve always found intriguing and mysterious. There is one particularly beautiful tower that is impossible to see from ground level, and so is named ‘La Bella Escondida’ (The hidden beauty). Seeing this shy building from a rooftop for the first time made me realise how much personality there can be in architecture. The tower has an aura around it, and as with any great piece of art, you feel moved when confronted by it. That is what architecture can be at its most beautiful – art that draws us in, captivates us and asks us to interact with it.
I don’t think it was until I fell in love with Cádiz that I thought about architecture in this way. Seeing buildings like ‘La Bella Escondida’ made it more clear to me that people had had to dream up their design. Striking architecture highlights the imagination behind cities and makes us see buildings as more than just objects. The beautiful way in which old Cádiz has been preserved ultimately allows us to look back into a different time, and catch a glimpse of how people once wished the world could be.
All this has made architecture an important source of inspiration for me when writing music and thinking creatively. What I love most about of songwriting and music production is that you get the chance to create atmospheres and build worlds in the melodies and the words. I want the listener to enter in to a different space in the songs, and hopefully feel transported in some way. Architecture can have that effect on me. It is unique as an art form because of the way in which we interact with it in real, everyday contexts when we pass through an archway or ascend a staircase. That relationship, and the way buildings can make you feel will forever intrigue me.
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