We move to the final panel of the Santiago triptych,
upon which I found myself drawn to
The Two Towers
on a distant hillside.
Moving through the city…
beyond the dual carriageway,
into the peri-urban,
stone marking transitions.
Trafficless I ascended.
An uncertain entrance.
Light dancing on the polished steel of hope.
Engineering Culture
amongst steel beams and rods,
watery inner belly exposed,
waiting
encasement in concrete
before facadification.
Old Distant Towers.
Signal to the New.
Glass and granite clad
organic forms
flow
across the hillside.
 The Two Towers                  drew                     me                             towards them.
Before I realised,
I had crossed the
threshold.
Broken shadows danced across the raw concrete.
Falling shards.
Trapped
the body
beneath.
Descending to another level,
traces of others
before
me.
Unfinished displays.
Hidden from site,
I found The Three Towers…
Returned,
to the city
boundary
marked by
standing stone.
And thus my pilgrimage ended.
——————————————————————————————————————-
The Two Towers are part of The City of Culture of Galicia (Cidade Da Cultura de Galicia) which when I visited was a building site partially open to the public. It became apparent, however, as I was ushered out by a workman, that the degree to which The Two Towers were open to the public was ambiguous !Â
The Two Towers are conceived as a memorial to architect John Hejduk (who designed them in 1992 for another project) but also function as a means of ventilating underground galleries and will act as a information centre. The void between the towers is an exact inverted profile of one of them: so in a sense there are actually Three Towers.
The City of Culture Galicia was designed by architect Peter Eisenman in response to a design competition in 1999. Based on overlaying a morphed ground plan of Medieval City and five main pilgrimage routes across the hillside of Mount Gaiás. The City of Culture was conceived as comprising buildings for several major Galician cultural institutions. It is a remarkable project in many respects, a modern assertion of confidence in Galician cultural identity which converses with the historic environment of Saniago de Compostela.
However, construction commenced in 2001, with a budget of 109 million Euros.  The project required another intervention in 2005 ’12 Actions to Make the Cidade da Cultura Transparent’ by architect Andrés Jaque to raise its awareness in the public consciousness. By 2011 400 million Euros had been spent on construction and in March 2013 work was stopped.   It is unclear as to whether all elements will actually be completed, and how well it will articulate with the Old City.
The standing stone encountered at the end of my journey was erected in 2006 to commemorate the opening of a new suburb, others can be found around the margins of the city.
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Moving through the city…
Trafficless I ascended.
An uncertain entrance.
Light dancing on the polished steel of hope.
Engineering Culture
watery inner belly exposed,
waiting
Old Distant Towers.
Signal to the New.
Glass and granite clad
 The Two Towers                  drew                     me                             towards them.
Broken shadows danced across the raw concrete.
Falling shards.
Trapped
Descending to another level,
Unfinished displays.
Hidden from site,
Returned,
And thus my pilgrimage ended.
heritagelandscapecreativity 