City of Arts and Sciences by Santiago Calatrava

The other night we were watching the latest episode of Doctor Who, season 10 episode 2. The Doctor and his companion, Bill, landed on an alien world of fields right out of Gladiator and some futuristic looking architecture. That architecture was not all CG models inspired by contemporary designs. It was actually Valencia, Spain and the work of Santiago Calatrava. It was a thrill to see it being used this way. The place is utterly bonkers and feels completely futuristic right down to the spaceship that’s landed at one end and is now an opera house.

Even on the latest episode of the Incomparable’s Doctor Who podcast with Jason Snell and James Thomson they discussed the use of the architecture in Valencia. It really was quite a set piece.

We travelled to Spain in 2011 just after I ran the Liverpool Marathon. It was our beach holiday / architecture tour. We were spoilt by this place. It was a bit of a bus trip to get from our hotel back into town to see it so we only went once and I’d love to revisit. It’s 6 years on and I feel like I’ve got a better eye for architecture now. Plus there was so much to see we only saw about half of it. We didn’t get to see inside anywhere either. So much to see. Calatrava really out did himself here.