Architecture in Spain, freedom, and a tool for the nosey
by Sandy Ikeda
Wed, 20 Feb 2008 at 2:45 AM
Clive Irving on MSNBC writes that Spain is "Europe's most innovative culture." He wanted to learn why Spain "has become a magnet for architects at least eight Pritzker winners are currently working on projects there." Says Richard Rogers, last year's winner of the prestigious Pritzker prize in architecture: "In terms of culture, Spain is the most interesting country in Europe at the moment
. The craftsmanship is as good as the best anywhere."
Centuries of Arab occupation are one reason, according to Mr. Irving, producing a blend of western and middle-eastern cultural ethoi in Spain. A less cumbersome bureaucracy is evidently important as well, at least as far as new construction is concerned, compared to other European cities today. Moreover, when asked to name the best city planners historically, the deputy mayor of Seville, Emilio Carrillo, answered without hesitation, "the Arabs."
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Another reason the article offers for Spain's recent cultural vitality is the fall of the Franco regime and the release of pent-up creativity. Freedom House currently gives Spain its highest rating for political rights and civil liberties. However, Spain's gain in economic liberty e.g., less regulation and redistribution, lower taxes and inflation, freer trade since Franco has been fairly modest according to the latest Economic Freedom of the World report. Today it's tied for 44th place with several other countries including Israel and Mexico. (Hong Kong is number one again, while America places 5th behind Singapore, New Zealand, and Switzerland.)
Now, there are those (like me) who hold that entrepreneurial and artistic creativity are both enabled mainly by economic liberty and only secondarily by political freedom. (Economic and political freedoms do complement each other to some extent, but they aren't of course the same thing.) If these indexes are reliable, Spain's high political-freedom rating, middling economic-liberty ranking, and hot cultural scene in some ways challenges this view.
Perhaps artistic expression is more responsive to changes in political oppression because an oppressor, whether democratic or dictatorial, finds it more costly to tolerate artists' subversion of (especially political) orthodoxies, something they tend to do, than the disruptions to economic planning, to the extent that there is such planning, that free economic choice produces.
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Last week, The Sun noted in "NY Residents Now Able To Monitor Blocks Online" that "a new Web site allows New Yorkers to monitor everything happening on their block, from restaurant inspections and building violations to missed connections posted on Craigslist and news mentions."
Updated regularly, you can use this site to keep track of what local government is doing in practically any neighborhood, and search by location or the type of info you want (e.g., crime reports and building permits). Here's the direct link to the Everyblock website. In addition to New York, the website's creator, Adrian Holovaty, covers Chicago and San Francisco and plans to expand to other cities. A neat toy for the chronically curious among us!
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