Drilling La Pedrera: Risking Art Treasures in the Name of Technology

If you want to visit Barcelona this month of November and you expected to take wonderful pictures of La Pedrera or Casa Mila standing across the street you will be quite disappointed. As you probably know Barcelona will be connected to France by AVE trains (AVE stands for Alta Velocidad which means High Speed and at the same time ave means bird). The line between Madrid and Barcelona is already operational while the works from the Catalan city on to the French border are underway after years of delay (expected to connect with the European high speed network in 2012). You probably know as well that recently they were very near Sagrada Familia with the tunneling machine and there was a debate on whether this would affect the Cathedral foundations or not. The fact is that the choice was finally made and Adif the company in charge had to built a protective wall to strengthen the area. The same protection was recommended by a group of experts to be implemented right next to La Pedrera. As you can see in the image they are already drilling to make the 32 pillars which will create a smaller protective wall and it is expected that Barcino, the tunneling machine, arrives here in coming months. After watching the drill approach so ominously over the famous façade I can't help thinking somebody somewhere in some dark ministry office must have screwed it up badly when they let the speed train go along Mallorca and Provença streets (UNESCO gave the international approval) risking our cultural patrimony in the name of development and technology.

Diagonal 00 Tower Reflected on Barcelona Forum Mirror

Architectural abstraction showing brand new Diagonal 00 tower reflected on one of the many mirrors hanging from the Forum building in Barcelona. My daughter says people will not tell what is what here but I trust your imagination. Anyway this is about shapes. Have a nice new week everyone!

Alternative Energy: Hybrid Car and Barcelona Solar Panel

It is no secret that the relevance of the word green has grown exponentially in the last years. At the beginning, it was basically a nice label to stick on many products, just another manipulated concept like bio, healthy, all-natural, organic or reduced-fat and companies, by nature reluctant to invest extra money in more expensive technology just to save the planet, grew richer while doing nothing. Lately, the trend slightly changes due to their own clients' pressure, the growing awareness that something must be done to find alternative ways, alternative products, alternative energies and so they started paying attention, just when somebody kicked them in the place that hurts them the most, their pockets. Who would have thought some years ago that the car industry was going to make hybrid cars? Yes, they would play with some concept car, show us very futuristic projects that ended up in the paper shredder. Not that they are greener than Al Gore now but something's cooking in the market. So as you can guess, the moral is that it is our duty to exert more pressure on monopolies so they respect environment, invest in alternative energy sources and make greener products. Of course we could get rid of monopolies, but that's another story. Our picture today, a contrast in appearance between solar panels and cars, is not so, as this happens to be one of those new hybrid cars. In fact, they were filming this spot to promote the brand and I took profit of the situation. With a little luck I've found the car model: Honda Fit Hybrid. I think this video is more illustrative: World Debut of Honda Fit EV. But I am sure that what the industry is making for our planet is still as little as this vehicle looks in comparison with the solar panel in the Barcelona Forum area.