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Interesting article in the Arts section of the NYTimes today about Spain's Architectural Explosion.

It talks about Mr. Terence Riley's, the NY museum of Museum of Modern Art chief curator of architecture and design, travels through Europe looking for work to include in a show he was organizing about stadiums, auditoriums and theaters around the world.

As he traveled through Spain last February looking at various projects before heading on to other European cities, Mr. Riley changed his mind. "I had this revelation of sorts," he recalled. Mr. Riley realized that the show was right in front of him: an explosion of inventive architecture in a country that had long shunned experimental forms. From the Barajas Airport Terminals in Madrid with its vast wings of wavy steel, to the Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona with an undulating roof of riotous color, so much of what he was seeing was compellingly original.



The country is using architecture "to stabilize neighborhoods and maintain a sense of urban life," he said. Instead of centralizing social services, education and medical services in Barcelona in large, hulking structures, for example, smaller eye-catching versions of them are scattered within each of the city's 41 traditional barrios, enlivening the neighborhoods and enriching the city's architectural fabric. And then there are the projects that draw attention purely because of their design, like the performing arts school in Tenerife by GPY Arquitectos, a mélange of stone and wood partly exposed to the open air that harnesses the city and the Atlantic as backdrop.

Unlike China, he said, where most of the big commissions are going to foreign architects these days, Spain is turning enthusiastically to its own as well as to outsiders. "There is a very good and healthy mix," he said.

You can read the full article here (requires subscription)