Gustav Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles over Onyar river. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Up to date June 6, 2024
The historical past of Girona, Spain, is as colourful because the ochre and coral-toned buildings lining the banks of the Onyar river that flows by means of this historic metropolis.
Bursting with historic websites, Girona makes an amazing day journey from Barcelona, only a 40-minute categorical prepare experience away. Gustave Eiffel constructed a bridge on this metropolis ten years earlier than designing his eponymous tower in Paris. Jews and Arabs as soon as lived in concord throughout the metropolis’s medieval partitions, and legendary Tour du Monde cyclists benefit from Girona’s diversified terrain and delicate climate to coach there.
Citywide Web site-Particular Botanical Artwork Installations
Each Could, the town’s Temps de Flors pageant turns Girona right into a vibrant and sprawling out of doors botanical artwork expertise. The week-long occasion blends horticulture and artwork, that includes site-specific installations created primarily of flowers and crops.
Flowers carpet the again facet of Sant Filiu in the course of the annual Temps de Flors pageant. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Institute la Garrotya created these pallets crammed with flowers on the steps of La Pera. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Extra Than 100 Works of Botanical Artwork
In its 61st yr, the Temps de Flors pageant was launched in 1955 as a floral exhibition within the church of Sant Domènec. It has since developed right into a citywide occasion with greater than 100 spectacular works of botanical-inspired artwork occupying Girona’s main monuments, courtyards, and personal areas not usually open to the general public.
Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles connects the brand new and outdated elements of the town. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Lymbus: An Artwork Set up and Multi-Media Efficiency
I used to be honored to spend my first week on the town collaborating with gifted Girona and Barcelona-based panorama artists Marc Grañén and Jordi Sanchez Sanmiguel to create Lymbus, a botanical artwork set up composed of a whole bunch of crops that stuffed the centuries-old steps of Girona’s oldest church, the Basilica Sant Feliu.
DJs spinning sounds every night at 6 pm for Lymbus on the steps of Sant Filiu. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Artisans from Girona-based Pont de Querós labored with us to create arches woven from dwell willow crops. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
An inventive narrative in regards to the connection between human beings and nature, Lymbus –another type of the phrase ‘limbus’ whose c. 1300 that means referred to the area on the border of Hell–was a commentary on the local weather disaster and the dire want for human beings to reconnect with nature’s life cycle. After the pageant, we donated all of the crops to native colleges and regional parks.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Vegetation, Performers, and Pyrotechnics
For the pageant’s opening night time, Grañén, in collaboration with Joan Font, Director of the Barcelona theater group Comediants, co-produced a spectacular 45-minute open-air multi-media sound and light-weight present that includes the entire set up’s gardeners and designers. A big crowd gathered within the church sq. as we paraded with stilt walkers carrying sparklers, flares, and fireplace. Digital music and brightly coloured lighting supplied the backdrop for the occasion, which opened with a prima donna performing a dwell opera aria of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah from the cathedral’s bell tower.
Elevating the large two-ton tree. Photograph: Marc Grañén and Comediants.
Elevating a Two-Ton Tree
As a metaphor for the collective effort required to save lots of our planet, our crew of 30 used sheer human power, rope, and thick wood rods to boost a two-ton tree {that a} crane had lowered onto the cathedral stair touchdown.
Filling the Plaça Sant Feliu and past, an viewers of over 2500 seen the extravaganza, culminating in a fireworks show that lit up the sky above the cathedral spire.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Streets bloom with coloration throughout Temps de Flors. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A model of flowers and crops at a store entrance. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Citywide Plant and Floral-Impressed Culinary Artwork and Decor
Practically all of Girona participates within the pageant: store homeowners costume up their storefronts and home windows with floral-inspired decor, and little botanical surprises seem in hidden corners and on residential balconies all through the city. Throughout the pageant, many eating places provide particular Gastroflors menus with uncommon dishes of edible artwork ready utilizing flowers and crops.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Native retailers costume up their store home windows. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Restaurant La Penyora’s assemblage of plates and crops. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Repurposed plastic bottles become planters on pipes all through the town. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Furnishings restoration store’s planter from a recycled chest of drawers. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In entrance of a house decor store. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Impromptu lighting fixture hanging from a recycled wooden department. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Upholsterer’s potted flowers are constructed from textiles. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Loving this floral-adorned scooter. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
My Temps de Flors Favourite Picks
We weren’t the one group working lengthy hours till the pageant’s opening day, and I loved watching the creativity unfold as others ready and constructed their installations all through the town. Listed here are a few of my favorites:
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Vines draped elegantly round a fountain’s arch on a road in Bari Vell, by the Associaciò Floral de Girona. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
In entrance of Girona Metropolis Corridor, hanging items have been planted by vocational commerce college students. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Making hay in a courtyard at Plaça Bell-Lloc with this bicycle spray-painted metallic gold. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Little surprises at each flip off the Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Sitting fairly exterior On line casino Girona. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Kokedama Stretching the Size of the Eiffel Bridge
Eiffel’s circa 1877 iron bridge, Pont de les Peixateries Velles aka El Pont de Ferro (ferro means iron), stands on the confluence of 4 rivers, one of many 11 bridges connecting Girona’s japanese historic walled metropolis with its newer western facet. It’s one in every of Girona’s semi-secret historic highlights as most vacationers have no idea Eiffel constructed a bridge in Girona, and due to this fact a particular honor for these assigned to create an set up there.
I’m wondering what Gustav Eiffel would have considered the spectacular sequence of hanging crops flanking the edges of his bridge. Of their interpretation of conventional Japanese kokedama, floral artists from Rosa Valls Formació suspended flowing kokedama preparations embellished with raffia from all sides of the bridge.
Eiffel’s Pont de le Peixateries Velles. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Kokedama, a variation of bonsai typically referred to as “string gardens,” are balls of peat moss-covered Akadama soil substrate from which a decorative plant grows. With the cascading raffia floating softly within the breeze like dancing crops, the set up complemented the bridge’s geometric traces and symmetry whereas respecting the integrity of Eiffel’s design.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Floral Curtain Suspended from Gomez Bridge
From the middle of one other bridge, the Pont de la Princesa, aka Gomez Bridge, artists suspended a easy however beautiful curtain of crops hooked up to corrugated iron bars.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Artwork i Argent’s hydrangeas and hanging foil disks rose up the steps of Carrer de Miquel Oliva i Prat.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Little bouquet shock floating among the many gold disks. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Within the Passeig Arqueològic, a style of lime blossom tea and yours really posing with teacup and teabag to demo the size…
Yours really. My cup runneth over. Photograph: Ariadna Sicilia.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Mistos (matches) at Riu Galligants: the “flame” is a purple plant I couldn’t establish. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Colourful umbrellas and paper flowers hanging from above and down the size of the road. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton
Plant-filled hollowed log and potted crops in a courtyard at Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Chalkboard invited guests to create an interactive piece of floral-inspired paintings. Plaça Bell-LLoc, Travesia Auriga. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Cinematic Clematis
As if they have been lengthy overgrown from the inside to exterior, clusters of dried branches protruded from the home windows in entrance of the Antic Cinema Fashionable, a former movie show a brief stroll from Girona’s city corridor. In an set up that was extra a chunk to be skilled than seen, designers introduced the disused empty house to life, creating an al fresco theater the place flowers and crops “carried out” earlier than an viewers of empty white chairs.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Multi-hued flower pots hanging the wrong way up on the Carrers Calderers Barca, Pujada Sant Feliu. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Rolls of turf, beneath, leftover from the primary cathedral’s set up have been infinitely extra attention-grabbing than the set up itself.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Household Floral Affair: Mom Passes Down the Custom to Her Daughter
My buddy and journey host, pageant organizer Angels Artigas Claret, owns Flor a Punt, a stunning little flower store that could be a spotlight for anybody strolling by means of the outdated a part of the town. Angel is carrying on a household custom: her mom, Anita Claret Sargatal is among the early founders of the Temps de Flors pageant. As a testomony to how folks of various cultures can bond even with no shared language, Angels and I spent a number of hours collectively one night over a protracted dinner at Sol Gastrobar, discussing every part from the resurgence of the Catalan language to how her grandparents selected to open a tire museum. Whereas I converse French and Italian however no Catalan or Spanish, Angels speaks some Italian enabling us to converse in bits of varied languages. The remaining was plain outdated human connection.
Angels Artigas Claret, proprietor of Flor a Punt. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Tales of Tires
As a tribute to her household’s legacy, Angel’s mom Anita Claret Sargatal collaborated with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues on an set up constructed from recycled tires set earlier than the facade of the Església Sagrat Corin. There’s a backstory to Sargatal’s selection of tires for this set up. Sargatal’s mom (Angel’s grandmother) and her late husband Salvador Claret, a mechanic, returned from a visit to America, the place they’d noticed quite a few roadside inns providing companies for motorists, a novel idea they’d not seen in Spain. Upon their return to Girona in 1945, they have been the primary in Spain to open the “American-style” Lodge de la Selva whose giant signal they mounted on Pirelli tires. The resort included a restaurant, storage, gasoline station, and towing service–-everything vacationers touring by automotive would want. Across the identical time, Salvador Claret started accumulating classic automobiles and auto elements that are actually a part of the everlasting show on the Salvador Claret Vehicle Assortment in Sils, about 25 minutes south of Girona.
Anita Claret Sargatal, one of many early founders of Temps de Flors, poses earlier than an set up constructed from recycled tires on the Església Sagrat Corin, a collaboration with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
The Surreal Bartering of Tires For Salvador Dali Work
Angels’s grandmother was a buddy of the eccentric Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, who lived close by within the city of Figueres and as soon as supplied his work in trade for a number of of Sargatel’s classic Pirelli tires. Dalí had a factor for cars, a recurrent theme in a lot of his works. In accordance with Montse Aguer of the Middle of Dalinian Research on the Gala-Salvador Dalí Basis, the automotive was an emblem in Twentieth-century artwork of modernity, youth, power, energy, daring, motion, innovation, progress, and rebel.
Guests to the Dalí property and museum in Port Lligat will see a full-size Michelin man, a twentieth-century icon of the auto trade, sitting like a king on a throne of Pirelli tires on the head of the swimming pool. Although Dalí had already painted The Persistence of Reminiscence on the time, his well-known work that includes surrealistic pictures of melting pocket watches, Sargatel declined to barter for Dalí’s paintings, insisting as an alternative on accumulating the small quantity of change the artist might provide. Sargatel now owns one unique Dalí, and the household laughs in regards to the assortment of priceless work they might have as we speak had she recognized her artist buddy would turn out to be one of many icons of Twentieth-century artwork.
The Jewish Quarter: El Name
From the 12-Fifteenth centuries, Girona’s historic Jewish quarter is one in every of Europe’s most well-preserved. Its labyrinth of slender streets and courtyards weaves by means of the Força Vella–-the outdated walled a part of the town the place a vibrant Jewish neighborhood thrived in the course of the medieval interval.
Backyard of Middle Bonastruch. Taller de Magnnèsia remodeled the backyard house with a liturgical theme. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Girona was the birthplace of an necessary department of Kabbalah research, the paranormal and mental motion that non-Jews corresponding to Madonna have popularized prior to now decade. Till 1492, when the Spanish authorities compelled all Jews to depart Spain except they transformed to Catholicism, this neighborhood frequented their synagogue, purchased meat from the kosher butchers, and bathed within the mikvahs, or ritual baths. The Museum of the Historical past of the Jews gives an in depth narrative of Girona and Catalonia’s Jewish inhabitants earlier than their expulsion on the finish of the Fifteenth century.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A tribute to the depth and power of the universe, the ability of water, important to pure progress in Casa Lléo Avinay’s backyard within the outdated Jewish Quarter, El Name. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Within the courtyard of Casa Sambola, students from the Faculty of Artwork and Design of Tarragona and Reus inform the story of a pair in love separated by struggle. The unhappy and reflective girl pulls petals from the daisies day by day as she says, “he loves me, he loves me not.” Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
A path of blue hydrangeas and spheres by Artwork i Argenti weaving up the Escales del Carrer de Miguel Oliva i Prat. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Suave laundry was hanging on the Plaça de la Terre Carlemany, and a cool “bench” atop two planters (how’d they do this?) by Jardiners de la Vila d’Albi. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Household Affair: Mom Passes Down the Custom to Her Daughter
My buddy and journey host, pageant organizer Angels Artigas Claret, owns Flor a Punt, a stunning little flower store that could be a spotlight for anybody strolling by means of the outdated a part of the town. Angel is carrying on a household custom: her mom, Anita Claret Sargatal is among the early founders of the Temps de Flors pageant. As a testomony to how folks of various cultures can bond even with no shared language, Angels and I spent a number of hours collectively one night over a protracted dinner at a neighborhood wine bar, discussing every part from the resurgence of the Catalan language to how her grandparents selected to open a tire museum. Whereas I converse French and Italian however no Catalan or Spanish, Angels speaks some Italian so we conversed in bits of varied languages and the remainder was plain outdated human connection.
Angels Artigas Claret, proprietor of Flor a Punt. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Anita Claret Sargatal, one of many early founders of Temps de Flors, poses earlier than an set up constructed from recycled tires on the Església Sagrat Corin, a collaboration with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Tales of Tires
As a tribute to her household’s legacy, Anita Claret Sargatal collaborated with florists from the Escola Portuguesa Rui Rodrigues on an set up constructed from recycled tires set earlier than the facade of the Església Sagrat Corin. There’s a backstory to Sargatal’s selection of tires for this set up. Sargatal’s mom (Angel’s grandmother) and her late husband Salvador Claret, a mechanic, returned from a visit to America, the place they’d noticed quite a few roadside inns providing companies for motorists, a novel idea they’d not seen in Spain. Upon their return to Girona in 1945, they have been the primary in Spain to open the “American-style” Lodge de la Selva whose giant signal they mounted on Pirelli tires. The resort included a restaurant, storage, gasoline station, and towing service–-everything vacationers touring by automotive would want. Across the identical time, Salvador Claret started accumulating classic automobiles and auto elements that are actually a part of the everlasting show on the Salvador Claret Vehicle Assortment in Sils, about 25 minutes south of Girona.
The Surreal Bartering of Tires For Salvador Dali Work
Angels’s grandmother was a buddy of the eccentric Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, who lived close by within the city of Figueres and as soon as supplied his work in trade for a number of of Sargatel’s classic Pirelli tires. Dalí had a factor for cars, a recurrent theme in a lot of his works. In accordance with Montse Aguer of the Middle of Dalinian Research on the Gala-Salvador Dalí Basis, the automotive was an emblem in Twentieth-century artwork of modernity, youth, power, energy, daring, motion, innovation, progress, and rebel.
Guests to the Dalí property and museum in Port Lligat will see a full-size Michelin man, a twentieth-century icon of the auto trade, sitting like a king on a throne of Pirelli tires on the head of the swimming pool. Although Dalí had already painted The Persistence of Reminiscence on the time, his well-known work that includes surrealistic pictures of melting pocket watches, Sargatel declined to barter for Dalí’s paintings, insisting as an alternative on accumulating the small quantity of change the artist might provide. Sargatel now owns one unique Dalí, and the household laughs in regards to the assortment of priceless work they might have as we speak had she recognized her artist buddy would turn out to be one of many icons of Twentieth-century artwork.
Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
Salut! Bottles of Spanish rosé (one in every of my faves) fill the window of the wine store subsequent door to my resort. Photograph: Robin Plaskoff Horton.
My deep gratitude to the Metropolis of Girona, the Lodge Ciutat de Girona, and most of all to my associates Angels Artigas Claret and Marc Grañèn for together with me as a co-creator within the 2016 version of Temps de Flors.
Disclosure: The Metropolis of Girona and Temps de Flors sponsored my journey to Girona. I used to be not paid to write down this publish; all opinions expressed herein are uniquely mine and never indicative of any sponsor opinions or positions.