One of the urban spaces that stood out the most to me on our trips is right here in Guardamar. There is a plaza called Puerta del Cairo that sits between some several restaurants and bars, and I believe there are some office buildings on the floors above it. All throughout Spain, we have seen beautiful plaza after beautiful plaza, whether it was the Puerta del Sol in Madrid or Plaza Nueva in Granada. Madrid, as we said many times in class, can be described as a city of plazas. This Puerta del Cairo however, I feel does not live up to Spain's reputation as a beautiful city of plazas.
There is plenty to do in the plaza. There is a nice small pizza place open late, a small Irish bar, and an Indian restaurant that was one of my favorite restaurants in all of Guardamar. The park in the center itself has some nice benches, one of which I have sat on a few times for about an hour or so to call my parents. Thus, most of the plaza is perfectly fine for normal use or just to hang out.
The thing, however, that makes this plaza so strange to me are these white plastic palm trees they decided to put in the center of the square for shading! Now I could see these white plastic palm trees being more acceptable if palm trees could not grow in the area. However, Guardamar is quite literally on the beach and there are palm trees all over the town. There are other trees in this plaza in fact, why could they not have simply planted normal palm trees instead of this weird white plastic eyesores! I am trying to imagine the architect in the planning room who decided for some reason to pitch these fake palm trees rather than real ones.
However, even though I absolutely hate these white plastic palm trees, my eyes are always drawn to this plaza. I always think about how incongruous these white plastic palms are with the many beautiful green spaces around the city of Guardamar. I wonder how the people of the town who live and work here feel looking at these fake palms everyday. Do they loathe these trees like I do or perhaps have the trees been here for so long that no one notices them anymore and they have simply become another part of the city? Or perhaps people just like to have shade without having to worry about landscaping maintenance. Regardless, this is the spot I think I have thought the most about on our travels throughout Spain.
-Ben
There is plenty to do in the plaza. There is a nice small pizza place open late, a small Irish bar, and an Indian restaurant that was one of my favorite restaurants in all of Guardamar. The park in the center itself has some nice benches, one of which I have sat on a few times for about an hour or so to call my parents. Thus, most of the plaza is perfectly fine for normal use or just to hang out.
The thing, however, that makes this plaza so strange to me are these white plastic palm trees they decided to put in the center of the square for shading! Now I could see these white plastic palm trees being more acceptable if palm trees could not grow in the area. However, Guardamar is quite literally on the beach and there are palm trees all over the town. There are other trees in this plaza in fact, why could they not have simply planted normal palm trees instead of this weird white plastic eyesores! I am trying to imagine the architect in the planning room who decided for some reason to pitch these fake palm trees rather than real ones.
However, even though I absolutely hate these white plastic palm trees, my eyes are always drawn to this plaza. I always think about how incongruous these white plastic palms are with the many beautiful green spaces around the city of Guardamar. I wonder how the people of the town who live and work here feel looking at these fake palms everyday. Do they loathe these trees like I do or perhaps have the trees been here for so long that no one notices them anymore and they have simply become another part of the city? Or perhaps people just like to have shade without having to worry about landscaping maintenance. Regardless, this is the spot I think I have thought the most about on our travels throughout Spain.
-Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment