Tail Lamps Chasing Headlights

the following was written sunday night (palm sunday) around midnight across from and next to the Arc de Triomf, the site of my architecture project:



The site is asleep. So is most of Barcelona. Palm Sunday has put a calm over this mostly secular culture. The only noise of any consequence comes from passing cars. The occasional pedestrians tap their shoes past. A bicycle or two squeek by. Most of the apartments are dark. They must either be asleep or avoiding windows. Dull yellow lights illuminate the small and empty park a block over. Past trips through the park revealed benches with old tattered blankets on them, proclaiming to the world that those beds have already been claimed and would soon be occupied. The other major source of light comes from the empty gas station (in the states an empty gas station would be a rare sight, here any gas station is a rare sight). The arc is light. There are still a few tourists snapping flash photography. Most of the foot traffic is headed to the metro before it closes. The temporary entrance is intruding on the park while the new entrance is being build in front of me. The empty construction pit reveals parts of the neighboring building that were never intended to see the light of day. I wonder if any transit center or metro entrance could stretch out high enough to cover the nakid sides of its neighbors. Distant church bells proclaim the begining of a new day but the rest of the world seems not to notice.

Approaching the arc reveals completely different scenery. The same tempered activity has spread to a huge scale. Service trucks pass on their way to tend to the various neighborhoods in the area. There is activity here but not enough to fill the space. The Arc de Triomf, gateway to the worlds fair of 120 years ago, stands between a wide tree lined avenue headed to the mountians and a tree lined plaza headed to the Citadel Park. The headquarters for the local gas company sits in the distance, just on top of the trees of the park. Pearly white lamps hung from posts, that look inspired by cranes at a sea port, point to the entrance of the park. They point to the dark mass of trees. The only other light comes from the road just before the park. A steady stream of bright red tail lamps chase dull yellow headlights.