Summer seems so far.

The winter quilt has come out of the cupboard together with woolly jumpers... summer is over here in The Netherlands. So here are some fresh images from the summer. (Barcelona updates haven't finished yet). 

Jardí Botànic de Barcelona.

My friend Jordi and I decided to meet in the botanical gardens of Barcelona to try out our newly acquired SLR cameras. It was like a photo rally, snapping all over the place like crazy! It's a fun way to compare photos and share techniques. 

I was very impressed by the modern design of the gardens, love it! And the selection of plants is fantastic (running out of adjectives again). 

I found this information on the website http://www.landezine.com:

text via JBB: Barcelona’s new Botanical Garden was designed by an interdisciplinary team comprising the architects Carlos Ferrater and Josep Lluís Canosa, the landscape architect Bet Figueras, the horticulturalistArtur Bossy and the biologist Joan Pedrola. Two fundamental considerations were taken into account in creating the Garden:

Firstly, how the vegetation was to be structured. It was important to plan the layout according to geographic criteria, grouping the plants according to the world’s five Mediterranean regions. Within these regional groupings, moreover, the plants should be combined according to ecological affinity, that is to say, recreating landscapes as they are found in nature.

The second consideration involved creating a project in which the mountain itself provided the topographic conditions for establishing the different plant areas in the Garden. This entailed designing the network of paths around the natural relief and avoiding large earth moving operations as far as possible.

The result was a triangular-shaped network adapted to the available space and to the mountain slopes. This mesh of paths marked out the 71 spaces containing the principal plant communities found in Mediterranean climate regions all over the world.

Tuesday Music.

Don't waste your life Claire. Don't waste the things that you might do.

 

Heatwave in Barcelona.

In order to attend the illustration workshop I had to spend some days in Barcelona until it started. Normally this would be quite appealing to anyone, but August in this city tends to be a sweaty experience. Even worse than normally as they had a 3 week heatwave. I was very ready to come back to Rotterdam's cooler temperatures by the end of it. 

So most of the days were spent indoors, in air conditioned spaces or outdoors at night. 

A very well known computer brand has continued expanding it's empire. 

Translucent staircase. 

No frills bar. 

Hot. Heat. Hot. Heat. All the time. 

Nice lettering. 

Paralyzed construction sites are a very common thing now a days in Barcelona. 
This building was in exactly the same state as when I saw it over a year ago. 

Floyd, Helen and I went to the Natural History Museum. 

Duct-taped door. 

Boy meets world. 

Konstantin Grcic chairs in the planetarium. 

Fossilized creatures. 

Giant egg. 

Helen's illuminated moment. 

Marta Altés and a crazy world, where floor tiles are used as wall tiles. 

This kid might end up hating Iron Maiden. But in the mean time, his parents will make the most of his tender age and lack of decision for style. 

Correfoc! Where everyone watching can get burned! Yay!

No luck at the bingo. But still fun. 

Jail smack bang in the city. It's called "La Modelo", which means "the model". 

We meet at last!

Fem Fem and a beautiful concert in the back patio of a plant shop. 

Marc and a palm tree. 

Me in a bad heatwave mood. 

Beautiful exhibition at Caixa Forum about maps. 

Three years.

Life is good. Thank you, Phil.