Sunday 20 February 2011

Nothing but quiet.



You are arriving at Madrid, have a walk through Madrid and comes across this square: Callao what? Spaniards often let a letter, the spoken d, you know: cansado-cansao, alicatado-alicatao, callado-callao, Callao. I thougt. And 'callado/callao' means 'quiet'. But it is not true. There was a battle in Spanish-Southamerican War in 1866, the Battle of Callao, named by the peruan city of Callao. That's it.

Thursday 10 February 2011

The best air Madrid ever had...



... said the Councillor for Environment Ana Botella yesterday, asked for the highest value of NO2 in the air. Do you think the same way? I don't. (My bicycle is parked in the stack meanwhile and I have to go by subway.)

Saturday 5 February 2011

In the cold north.



This is Castilla Plaza - the main square of Madrid's northern neighbourhood Chamartín. I was in luck to take this shot out from a terrace in a close building. Tr3tna did show you the KIO-Towers in an older post yet, a great work of the architects Philip Johnson y John Burgee, and the first inclined towers in the world. In the centre there is a 92m monument of a savings bank, designed by the Valencian engineer Santiago Calatrava from 2010. In my opinion put it here is a pity, rejecting all the greatness and smart balance the KIO-Towers have with a simple vertical statement. Now the square is really overloaded, don't you think so?