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(Redirected from Hong kong)
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory south to Mainland China and east to Macao in East Asia. With around 7.2 million Hong Kongers of various nationalities[note 2] in a territory of 1,104 km2, Hong Kong is the world's fourth most densely populated country or territory.
Hong Kong used to be a British colony with the perpetual cession of Hong Kong Island from the Qing Empire after the First Opium War (1839–42). The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and acquired a 99-year lease of the New Territories from 1898. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during the Second World War until British control resumed in 1945. The Sino-British Joint Declaration signed between the United Kingdom and China in 1984 paved way for the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, when it became a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China with a high degree of autonomy.[15]
Under the principle of "one country, two systems",[16][17] Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative and judiciary powers.[18] In addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of "appropriate fields".[19] Hong Kong involves in international organizations, such as the WTO[20] and the APEC [21], actively and independently.
Hong Kong is one of the world's most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the world's most competitive and freest economic entity.[22][23] As the world's 8th largest trading entity,[24] its legal tender, the Hong Kong dollar, is the world's 13th most traded currency.[25] As the world's most visited city,[26][27] Hong Kong's tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by competitive simple taxation and supported by its independent judiciary system.[28] Even with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, it suffers from severe income inequality.[29]
Nicknamed "Pearl of the Orient", Hong Kong is renowned for its deep natural harbour, which boasts the world's fifth busiest port with ready access by cargo ships, and its impressive skyline, with the most skyscrapers in the world.[30][31] It has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the world's longest life expectancy.[32][33] Over 90% of the population makes use of well-developed public transportation.[34][35] Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring industrial areas of Mainland China, which adopts loose emissions standards, has resulted in a high level of atmospheric particulates in winter.[36][37][38]
Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
2.1 Prehistory
2.2 Imperial China
2.3 British Crown Colony: 1842–1941
2.4 Japanese occupation: 1941–45
2.5 Resumption of British rule and industrialisation: 1945–97
2.6 Handover and Special Administrative Region status
3 Governance
3.1 Structure of government
3.2 Electoral and political reforms
3.3 Legal system and judiciary
3.4 Foreign relations
3.5 Human rights
3.6 Regions and districts
3.7 Military
4 Geography and climate
5 Economy
5.1 Financial centre
5.2 International trading
5.3 Tourism and expatriation
5.4 Policy
5.5 Infrastructure
6 Demographics
6.1 Languages
6.2 Religion
6.3 Personal income
6.4 Education
6.5 Health
7 Culture
7.1 Sports
7.2 Architecture
7.3 Cityscape
7.4 Symbols
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
10.1 Citations
10.2 Sources
11 Further reading
12 External links
Etymology
Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island.[39]
The source of the romanised name "Hong Kong" is not known, but it is generally believed to be an early imprecise phonetic rendering of the pronunciation in spoken Cantonese 香港 (Cantonese Yale: Hēung Góng), which means "Fragrant Harbour" or "Incense Harbour".[13][14][40] Before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour (Chinese: 香港仔; Cantonese Yale: Hēunggóng jái), literally means "Little Hong Kong"—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was an initial point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen.[41]
Another theory is that the name would have been taken from Hong Kong's early inhabitants, the Tankas (水上人); it is equally probable that romanisation was done with a faithful execution of their speeches, i.e. hōng, not hēung in Cantonese.[42] Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time.[43]
Fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour.[40]
The name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926.[44] Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the single-word form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
As of 1997, its official name is the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China". This is the official title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Hong Kong Government's website;[45] however, "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" and "Hong Kong" are widely accepted.
Hong Kong has carried many nicknames. The most famous among those is the "Pearl of the Orient", which reflected the impressive nightscape of the city's light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour. The territory is also known as "Asia's World City".
History
Main articles: History of Hong Kong and History of China
Prehistory
Main article: Prehistoric Hong Kong
Archaeological studies support human presence in the Chek Lap Kok area (now Hong Kong International Airport) from 35,000 to 39,000 years ago and on Sai Kung Peninsula from 6,000 years ago.[46][47][48]
Wong Tei Tung and Three Fathoms Cove are the earliest sites of human habitation in Hong Kong during the Paleolithic Period. It is believed that the Three Fathom Cove was a river-valley settlement and Wong Tei Tung was a lithic manufacturing site. Excavated Neolithic artefacts suggested cultural differences from the Longshan culture of northern China and settlement by the Che people, prior to the migration of the Baiyue to Hong Kong.[49][50] Eight petroglyphs, which dated to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC – 1066 BC) in China, were discovered on the surrounding islands.[51]
Imperial China
Main article: History of Hong Kong under Imperial China
In 214 BC, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a centralised China, conquered the Baiyue tribes in Jiaozhi (modern-day Liangguang region and Vietnam) and incorporated the area of Hong Kong into his imperial China for the first time. Hong Kong proper was assigned to the Nanhai commandery (modern-day Nanhai District), near the commandery's capital city Panyu.[52][53][54]
After a brief period of centralisation and collapse of the Qin dynasty, the area of Hong Kong was consolidated under the Kingdom of Nanyue, founded by general Zhao Tuo in 204 BC.[55] When Nanyue lost the Han-Nanyue War in 111 BC, Hong Kong came under the Jiaozhi commandery of the Han dynasty. Archaeological evidence indicates an increase of population and flourish of salt production. The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb on the Kowloon Peninsula is believed to have been built as a burial site during the Han dynasty.[56]
From the Han dynasty to the early Tang dynasty, Hong Kong was a part of Bao'an County. In the Tang dynasty, modern-day Guangzhou (Canton) flourished as an international trading centre. In 736, the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang established a military stronghold in Tuen Mun to strengthen defence of the coastal area.[57] The nearby Lantau Island was a salt production centre and salt smuggler riots occasionally broke out against the government. In c. 1075, The first village school, Li Ying College, was established around 1075 AD in modern-day New Territories by the Northern Song dynasty.[58] During their war against the Mongols, the imperial court of Southern Song was briefly stationed at modern-day Kowloon City (the Sung Wong Toi site) before their ultimate defeat by the Mongols at the Battle of Yamen in 1279.[59] The Mongols then established their dynastic court and governed Hong Kong for 97 years.
From the mid-Tang dynasty to the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Hong Kong was a part of Dongguan County. During the Ming dynasty, the area was transferred to Xin'an County. The indigenous inhabitants at that time consisted of several ethnicities such as Punti, Hakka, Tanka and Hoklo.
European discovery
The earliest European visitor on record was Jorge Álvares, a Portuguese explorer, who arrived in 1513.[60][61] Having established a trading post in a site they called "Tamão" in Hong Kong waters, Portuguese merchants commenced with regular trading in southern China. Subsequent military clashes between China and Portugal, however, led to the expulsion of all Portuguese merchants from southern China.
Since the 14th century, the Ming court had enforced the maritime prohibition laws that strictly forbade all private maritime activities in order to prevent contact with foreigners by sea.[62] When the Manchu Qing dynasty took over China, Hong Kong was directly affected by the Great Clearance decree of the Kangxi Emperor, who ordered the evacuation of coastal areas of Guangdong from 1661 to 1669. Over 16,000 inhabitants of Xin'an County including those in Hong Kong were forced to migrate inland; only 1,648 of those who had evacuated subsequently returned.[63][64]
British Crown Colony: 1842–1941
A painter at work. John Thomson. Hong Kong, 1871. The Wellcome Collection, London
Main articles: British Hong Kong and History of Hong Kong (1800s–1930s)
In 1839, threats by the imperial court of Qing to sanction opium imports caused diplomatic friction with the British Empire. Tensions escalated into the First Opium War. The Qing admitted defeat when British forces captured Hong Kong Island on 20 January 1841. The island was initially ceded under the Convention of Chuenpi as part of a ceasefire agreement between Captain Charles Elliot and Governor Qishan. A dispute between high-ranking officials of both countries, however, led to the failure of the treaty's ratification. On 29 August 1842, Hong Kong Island was formally ceded in perpetuity to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Treaty of Nanking.[65] The British officially established a Crown colony and founded the City of Victoria in the following year.[66]
The population of Hong Kong Island was 7,450 when the Union Flag raised over Possession Point on 26 January 1841. It mostly consisted of Tanka fishermen and Hakka charcoal burners, whose settlements scattered along several coastal hamlets. In the 1850s, a large number of Chinese immigrants crossed the then-free border to escape from the Taiping Rebellion. Other natural disasters, such as flooding, typhoons and famine in mainland China would play a role in establishing Hong Kong as a place for safe shelter.[67][68]
Further conflicts over the opium trade between Britain and Qing quickly escalated into the Second Opium War. Following the Anglo-French victory, the Crown Colony was expanded to include Kowloon Peninsula (south of Boundary Street) and Stonecutter's Island, both of which were ceded to the British in perpetuity under the Convention of Beijing in 1860.
In 1898, Britain obtained a 99-year lease from Qing under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, in which Hong Kong obtained a 99-year lease of Lantau Island, the area north of Boundary Street in Kowloon up to Shenzhen River and over 200 other outlying islands.[69][70][71]
Hong Kong soon became a major entrepôt thanks to its free port status, attracting new immigrants to settle from both China and Europe. The society, however, remained racially segregated and polarised under early British colonial policies. Despite the rise of a British-educated Chinese upper-class by the late-19th century, race laws such as the Peak Reservation Ordinance prevented ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong from acquiring houses in reserved areas such as Victoria Peak. At this time, the majority of the Chinese population in Hong Kong had no political representation in the British colonial government. The British governors did rely, however, on a small number of Chinese elites, including Sir Kai Ho and Robert Hotung, who served as ambassadors and mediators between the government and local population.
File:1937 Hong Kong VP8.webmPlay media
Hong Kong filmed in 1937
In 1904, the United Kingdom established the world's first border and immigration control; all residents of Hong Kong were given citizenship as Citizens of United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC).
Hong Kong continued to experience modest growth during the first half of the 20th century. The University of Hong Kong was established in 1911 as the territory's first higher education institute. While there had been an exodus of 60,000 residents for fear of a German attack on the British colony during the First World War, Hong Kong remained unscathed. Its population increased from 530,000 in 1916 to 725,000 in 1925 and reached 1.6 million by 1941.[72]
In 1925, Cecil Clementi became the 17th Governor of Hong Kong. Fluent in Cantonese and without a need for translator, Clementi introduced the first ethnic Chinese, Shouson Chow, into the Executive Council as an unofficial member. Under Clementi's tenure, Kai Tak Airport entered operation as RAF Kai Tak and several aviation clubs. In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out when the Japanese Empire expanded its territories from northeastern China into the mainland proper. To safeguard Hong Kong as a freeport, Governor Geoffry Northcote declared the Crown Colony as a neutral zone.
Japanese occupation: 1941–45
Main article: Japanese occupation of Hong Kong
The Cenotaph in Hong Kong commemorates those who died in service in the First World War and the Second World War.[73]
As part of its military campaign in Southeast Asia during Second World War, the Japanese army moved south from Guangzhou of mainland China and attacked Hong Kong in on 8 December 1941.[74] Crossing the border at Shenzhen River on 8 December, the Battle of Hong Kong lasted for 18 days when British and Canadian forces held onto Hong Kong Island. Unable to defend against intensifying Japanese air and land bombardments, they eventually surrendered control of Hong Kong on 25 December 1941. The Governor of Hong Kong was captured and taken as a prisoner of war. This day is regarded by the locals as "Black Christmas".[75]
During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the Japanese army committed atrocities against civilians and POWs, such as the St. Stephen's College massacre. Local residents also suffered widespread food shortages, limited rationing and hyper-inflation arising from the forced exchange of currency from Hong Kong dollars to Japanese military banknotes. The initial ratio of 2:1 was gradually devalued to 4:1 and ownership of Hong Kong dollars was declared illegal and punishable by harsh torture. Due to starvation and forced deportation for slave labour to mainland China, the population of Hong Kong had dwindled from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 in 1945, when the United Kingdom resumed control of the colony on 2 September 1945.[76]
Resumption of British rule and industrialisation: 1945–97
Main articles: British Hong Kong, 1950s in Hong Kong, 1960s in Hong Kong, 1970s in Hong Kong, 1980s in Hong Kong, and 1990s in Hong Kong
Flag of British Hong Kong from 1959 to 1997
Hong Kong's population recovered quickly after the war, as a wave of skilled migrants from the Republic of China moved in to seek refuge from the Chinese Civil War. When the Communist Party eventually took full control of mainland China in 1949, even more skilled migrants fled across the open border for fear of persecution.[69] Many newcomers, especially those who had been based in the major port cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, established corporations and small- to medium-sized businesses and shifted their base operations to British Hong Kong.[69] The establishment of a socialist state in China (People's Republic of China) on 1 October 1949 caused the British colonial government to reconsider Hong Kong's open border to mainland China. In 1951, a boundary zone was demarked as a buffer zone against potential military attacks from communist China. Border posts along the north of Hong Kong began operation in 1953 to regulate the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory.
Stamp with portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 1953
In the 1950s, Hong Kong became the first of the Four Asian Tiger economies under rapid industrialisation driven by textile exports, manufacturing industries and re-exports of goods to China. As the population grew, with labour costs remaining low, living standards began to rise steadily.[77] The construction of the Shek Kip Mei Estate in 1953 marked the beginning of the public housing estate programme to provide shelter for the less privileged and to cope with the influx of immigrants.
Under Sir Murray MacLehose, 25th Governor of Hong Kong (1971–82), a series of reforms improved the public services, environment, housing, welfare, education and infrastructure of Hong Kong. MacLehose was British Hong Kong's longest-serving governor and, by the end of his tenure, had become one of the most popular and well-known figures in the Crown Colony. MacLehose laid the foundation for Hong Kong to establish itself as a key global city in the 1980s and early 1990s.
A sky view of Hong Kong Island
An aerial view of the northern shore of Hong Kong Island in 1986
To resolve traffic congestion and to provide a more reliable means of crossing the Victoria Harbour, a rapid transit railway system (metro), the MTR, was planned from the 1970s onwards. The Island Line (Hong Kong Island), Kwun Tong Line (Kowloon Peninsula and East Kowloon) and Tsuen Wan Line (Kowloon and urban New Territories) opened in the early 1980s.[78]
In 1983, the Hong Kong dollar left its 16:1 peg with the Pound sterling and switched to the current US-HK Dollar peg. Hong Kong's competitiveness in manufacturing gradually declined due to rising labour and property costs, as well as new development in southern China under the Open Door Policy introduced in 1978 which opened up China to foreign business. Nevertheless, towards the early 1990s, Hong Kong had established itself as a global financial centre along with London and New York City, a regional hub for logistics and freight, one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia and the world's exemplar of Laissez-faire market policy.[79]
The Hong Kong question
In 1971, the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s permanent seat on the United Nations was transferred to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong's status as a recognised colony became terminated in 1972 under the request of PRC. Facing the uncertain future of Hong Kong and expiry of land lease of New Territories beyond 1997, Governor MacLehose raised the question in the late 1970s.
The British Nationality Act 1981 reclassified Hong Kong into a British Dependent Territory amid the reorganisation of global territories of the British Empire. All residents of Hong Kong became British Dependent Territory Citizens (BDTC). Diplomatic negotiations began with China and eventually concluded with the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Both countries agreed to transfer Hong Kong's sovereignty to China on 1 July 1997, when Hong Kong would remain autonomous as a special administrative region and be able to retain its free-market economy, British common law through the Hong Kong Basic Law, independent representation in international organisations (e.g. WTO and WHO), treaty arrangements and policy-making except foreign diplomacy and military defence.
It stipulated that Hong Kong would retain its laws and be guaranteed a high degree of autonomy for at least 50 years after the transfer. The Hong Kong Basic Law, based on English law, would serve as the constitutional document after the transfer. It was ratified in 1990.[69] The expiry of the 1898 lease on the New Territories in 1997 created problems for business contracts, property leases and confidence among foreign investors.
Handover and Special Administrative Region status
Main articles: Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong and 2000s in Hong Kong
Transfer of sovereignty
Golden Bauhinia Square
On 1 July 1997, the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China took place, officially marking the end of Hong Kong's 156 years under British colonial governance. As the largest remaining colony of the United Kingdom, the loss of Hong Kong effectively represented the end of the British Empire. This transfer of sovereignty made Hong Kong the first special administrative region of China. Tung Chee-Hwa, a pro-Beijing business tycoon, was elected Hong Kong's first Chief Executive by a selected electorate of 800 in a televised programme.
Structure of government
Hong Kong's current structure of governance inherits from the British model of colonial administration set up in the 1850s. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration states that "Hong Kong should enjoy a high degree of autonomy in all areas except defence and foreign affairs" with reference to the underlying principle of one country, two systems.[note 3] This Declaration stipulates that Hong Kong maintains her capitalist economic system and guarantees the rights and freedoms of her people for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover. [note 4] Such guarantees are enshrined in the Hong Kong's Basic Law, the territory's constitutional document, which outlines the system of governance after 1997, albeit subject to interpretation by China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC).[95][96]
Hong Kong's most senior leader, Chief Executive, is elected by a committee of 1,200 selected members (600 in 1997) and nominally appointed by the Government of China. The primary pillars of government are the Executive Council, Legislative Council, civil service and Judiciary.
Policy-making is initially discussed in the Executive Council, presided by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, before passing to the Legislative Council for bill adoption. The Executive Council consists of 30 official/unofficial members appointed by the Chief Executive and one member among them acts as the convenor.[97][98]
The Legislative Council, set up in 1843, debates policies and motions before voting to adopt or rejecting bills. It has 70 members (originally 60) and 40 (originally 30) among them are directly elected by universal suffrage; the other 30 members are "functional constituencies" (indirectly) elected by a smaller electorate of corporate bodies or representatives of stipulated economic sectors as defined by the government. The Legislative Council is chaired by a president who acts as the speaker.[99][100]
In 1997, seating of the Legislative Council (also public services and election franchises) of Hong Kong modelled on the British system: Urban Council (Hong Kong and Kowloon) and District Council (New Territories and Outlying Islands). In 1999, this system has been reformed into 18 directly elected District Offices across 5 Legislative Council constituencies: Hong Kong Island (East/West), Kowloon and New Territories (East/West); the remaining outlying islands are divided across the aforementioned regions.
Hong Kong's Civil Service, created by the British colonial government, is a politically neutral body that implements government policies and provides public services. Senior civil servants are appointed based on meritocracy. The territory's police, firefighting and customs forces, as well as clerical officers across various government departments, make up the civil service.[101][102]
Jardins de Joan Maragall
Quan s'entra en aquests jardins hom té la impressió que són propis d'un rei. I ho són, ja que van ser creats per a un rei a principis del segle XX. Els Jardins de Joan Maragall són elegantíssims, amb avingudes arbrades, àmplies extensions de gespa, parterres de broderie, fonts ornamentals, nombroses escultures a l'aire lliure i un palauet que fou, i encara és, residència reial.
Els Jardins de Joan Maragall són un espai ple de serenitat, un món a part on solament es percep el refilar dels ocells i el so de l'aigua que raja de les fonts ornamentals. S'hi s'entra per la porta que hi ha a l'avinguda de l'estadi; el primer que troba el visitant són gran parterres de gespa on creixen arbres altíssims. De tant en tant, lleugers desnivells vorejats de pedra van baixant suaument pel terreny fins a arribar al cor dels jardins: el Palauet Albéniz.
Un espai reialesc
Aquest és el qualificatiu més adient per a l'esplanada que s'estén al davant de la façana principal del palauet, flanquejada per dues àmplies escalinates que baixen des de la terrassa on hi ha la porta principal de l'edifici. Una seqüència d'estanys amb brolladors i cascades comparteixen protagonisme amb un llarg parterre de broderie.
Als costats d'aquest enjardinament clàssic i afrancesat, dues avingudes de til·lers retallats de manera cilíndrica emmarquen la delicadesa de les petites tanques vegetals que dibuixen espais plens de flors. Al fons, com a punt i final de la perspectiva dels jardins que es pot contemplar des del palauet, el terreny, cobert de gespa, s'enfila suaument i esdevé la peanya d'un templet on s'aixopluga Susanna al bany.
Racons amb personalitat
Arreu dels jardins, amples camins de sauló permeten passejar i anar descobrint els diferents espais en què es divideix, que n'hi ha uns quants, i amb força personalitat, la majoria amb escultures que n'arrodoneixen la bellesa.
Així, a la zona situada al costat del Palau Nacional, que és on hi ha l'entrada principal dels jardins, una gran avinguda de magnòlies amb un llarg estany amb brolladors al mig condueix fins als peus de turó que hi ha davant del palauet. Al damunt, una plaça semicircular envoltada de xiprers i presidida per Serena fa d'avantsala d'un petit amfiteatre.
El comiat
Als costats del palauet hi ha placetes recollides, amb fonts i safarejos ornamentats amb dofins i putti grassonets. Al darrere de l'edifici s'estén una àmplia praderia ombrejada per enormes pins. Sota les capçades, unes quantes tauletes amb cadires conviden a fer una pausa.
Al final de la praderia, una escalinata que baixa fins a l'avinguda de Santa Madrona comunica aquests jardins amb els de Laribal, una altra joia de la muntanya de Montjuïc. Abans d'iniciar el descens, una gran vista sobre Barcelona acomiada el visitant.
Vegetació
La vegetació dels Jardins de Joan Maragall és, a més de rica en espècies, un bon exemple de la jardineria de principis del segle XX i un espai verd amb grans exemplars arboris.
Hi ha til·lers (Tilia tomentosa) i magnòlies (Magnolia grandiflora) flanquejant magnífiques avingudes, i grans exemplars de coníferes, com el cedre de l'Himàlaia (Cedrus deodara), el cedre del Líban (Cedrus libani ssp.), el pi pinyer (Pinus pinea), el pi blanc (Pinus halepensis), la pinassa (Pinus nigra ssp. austriaca), el xiprer (Cupressus sempervirens), el xiprer d'Arizona (Cupressus glabra) i el xiprer de Monterrey (Cupressus macrocarpa)
En aquest jardí hi ha espècies tan mediterrànies com l'olivera (Olea europaea) i l'alzina (Quercus ilex), al costat d'altres tan poc freqüents com les Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei i Rhapis excelsa. En una de les placetes que hi als costats del palauet destaca un ginjoler (Zizipus jujuba) que pertany al catàleg d'Arbres d'Interès Local de Barcelona. Diferents espècies de pollancres (Populus alba, Populus alba pyramidalis, Populus simonii i Populus X canadensis), el taronger (Citrus aurantium), l'om (Ulmus minor) i el pebrer bord (Shinus molle) són altres espècies arbòries presents en aquests jardins.
Art i arquitectura
L'antic pavelló reial que hi ha dins els jardins, conegut com Palauet Albéniz i construït l'any 1929, és un edifici de tall neoclàssic, obra de l'arquitecte Joan Moya. Construït al darrere del Palau Nacional, el 1970 fou ampliat i remodelat.
Juntament amb l'edifici, als Jardins de Joan Maragall destaquen un total de 32 escultures de diferents èpoques i autors, algunes de gran qualitat. Destaquen Noia ajaguda (1950), de Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (1970), d'Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (1967), de Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (1862), de Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (1929), de Josep Viladomat; Susanna al bany (, de Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (1965), d'Ernest Maragall; dos nus femenins, l'un al davant de l'altre, anomenats Dona a la cascada (1970), el grup Dones a la cascada (1970) i Nu femení (1965), d'Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), de Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (1970), de Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (1970), d'Enric Monjo, i Dona amb nena i Dona amb nen (1970), de Luisa Granero.
Història
Aquests jardins tenen el seu origen en els que va dissenyar Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier al voltant del Pavelló Reial que es va construir a Montjuïc dins el recinte de l'Exposició Internacional de 1929. L'objectiu de l'edifici va ser doble: que Alfons XIII disposes d'un espai per a grans recepcions i també d'un lloc on fer una pausa i reposar una estona durant les seves visites a la dita exposició.
Acabada la mostra, es va pensar ubicar-hi el Museu de la Música de la ciutat, un projecte que no va prosperar però que sí que va determinar el nom amb el qual es coneix el palauet i amb el qual, durant molts anys, es van conèixer els jardins que l'envolten: Albéniz, en honor al gran músic Isaac Albéniz.
L'any 1970 els jardins es van ampliar i van passar a anomenar-se Joan Maragall. Aquesta ampliació va ser duta a terme per Joaquim M. Casamor i el Servei de Parcs i Jardins de Barcelona. Aquest és un dels tres jardins de Montjuïc que, juntament amb els de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer i Mossèn Costa i Llobera, van ser dedicats durant aquesta dècada a poetes catalans.
Actualment, el Palauet Albéniz és la residència de la família reial espanyola a Barcelona quan són en visita oficial, dels convidats il·lustres de la ciutat i seu de recepcions municipals de rellevància. És per aquests motius que en determinades ocasions els jardins estan tancats al públic.
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As one enters these gardens, they give the impression that they are the gardens of a king. This is true, as these gardens were created for a king at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The elegant Joan Maragall gardens are made up of wooded avenues, wide lawns, parterres de broderie, ornamental fountains, numerous outdoor sculptures and a small palace that was once and still remains a residence of the royal family.
The Joan Maragall gardens are full of serenity; they are a different world where the only thing that can be heard is the singing of the birds and the sound of the water as it bubbles out of the ornamental fountains. If you enter the gardens through the entrance on the Avinguda del Estadio, the first thing that you come across are tall trees and large stretches of lawn. As you walk on down into the heart of the gardens, the slight slope is occasionally broken up by stone-lined tiers that help you in your descent. The Palacete Albéniz.
The royal grounds
This is the most appropriate description for this open, grassy area that extends in front of the small palace, flanked by two wide staircases that descend from the patio, leading you towards the front door of the building. A series of ponds with fountains and waterfalls share the leading role with the long parterre de broderie.
Two rows of perfectly pruned lime trees line these classic French gardens, emphasising the delicateness of the small bushes that border the beds brimming with flowers. Upon the immense spread of lawn that marks the very end of the garden, there is a structure that shelters the sculpture of Susanna al bany (Susana in the bath). This statue is visible from the small palace.
Areas with personality
Throughout the whole garden there are wide sand pathways that lead you to the different areas of the park, each one with distinct characteristics. The true beauty of the majority of these areas is accented by the sculptures.
In the area of the Palau Nacional, at the main entrance to the gardens there is a wide avenue of magnolias and a large pond with fountains in the centre. This avenue leads us up to the bottom of the hill that is next to the small palace. At the top of this hill, there is a semicircular square surrounded by cypresses and presided over by the sculpture Serena that is seen as the lobby to the small amphitheatre.
The farewell
On the either side of the small palace there are tiny, quiet squares, with fountains and basins decorated with dolphins and cherubs. Behind the building, enormous pine trees provide shade to a large grassy area. Below these pine trees there are tables and chairs that invite the visitor to stop and have a little break.
There is a flight of stairs at the end of the lawn that leads us down to the Avinguda de Santa Madrona. This avenue connects these gardens to those of Laribal, the latter being another precious asset to the Montjuïc Mountain. Just before walking down these steps an exceptional view of Barcelona bids us farewell.
Vegetation
Apart from the great variety of species and trees that are planted in the Joan Maragall gardens, it is a good example of typical early-twentieth century gardens, a green space with very large trees.
The magnificent avenues are flanked by Silver Lime trees (Tilia tomentosa) and Southern Magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora). There are also numerous conifers, such as different cedar trees, (Cedrus deodara, Cedrus libani ssp), Roman pine trees (Pinus pinea), White Pine trees (Pinus halepensis), tall Black Pines (Pinus nigra, Austrian subsp.), Cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens, Cupressus glabra), and a few Monterey cypress trees (Cupressus macrocarpa).
There are also typical Mediterranean species, such as Olive trees (Olea europaea) and Holm Oaks (Quercus ilex), beside other species that are not as well-known, such as Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei and Rhapis excelsa. There is also a Jujube (Red Date) tree (Zizipus jujuba) planted in one of the small squares. This tree is featured in the Barcelona local trees of interest catalogue. Other species of trees in the garden are different varieties of Poplar trees (Populus alba, Populus alba 'Pyramidalis', Populus simonii and Populus X canadensis), Bitter Orange trees (Citrus aurantium), Elm trees (Ulmus minor) and Pepper trees (Schinus molle).
Art and Architecture
The neo-classical royal pavilion, known as the Palacete Albéniz, that is located in the gardens was built in 1929 by local architect Joan Moya. This building was built behind the Palau Nacional (National Palace), and was later refurbished in 1970.
Apart from this building, the Joan Maragall gardens also have 32 sculptures, all from different periods and each one sculpted by a different artist, some of them of very high quality. The sculptures that really stand out amongst the rest are the Noia ajaguda (Girl Lying Down) (1950), by Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (Naked in the pond) (1970), by Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (Stags) (1967), by Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (The water carrier) (1862), by Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (Two newts) (1929), by Josep Viladomat; Sussana al bany (Susana in the bath), by Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (Allegory of the sardana) (1965), by Ernest Maragall; two female nudes, facing each other, called Dona a la cascada (Woman in the waterfall) (1970) and the group of Dones a la cascada (Women in the waterfall) (1970), and Nu femení (Female nude) (1965), by Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), by Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (Girl in a swim cap) (1970), by Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (Woman lying down) (1970), by Enric Monjo, and Dona amb nena (Woman with a girl) and Dona amb nen (Woman with a boy) (1970), by Luisa Granero.
History
This green space originates from the gardens that Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier designed to circulate the Royal Pavilion. This building was built in 1929 inside the enclosure of the International Exhibition (a World's Fair) on Montjuïc. The building was built with two main objectives: to provide Alfonso XIII a space for his large banquets, and to provide a place for him to rest during his visits to the Exhibition.
Once the Exhibition had finished, the idea was to locate the Barcelona Museu de la Música (Museum of Music) there, but this never happened, although the idea determined the name of the small palace and for many years the name of the surrounding gardens. The small palace was named Albéniz, in honour of the great musical artist Isaac Albéniz.
In 1970 when the gardens were expanded, the name was changed to Joan Maragall. The expansion of these gardens was carried out by Joaquim M. Casamor and Barcelona's parks and gardens service. This garden was dedicated to the famous poets of the decade and is one of the three gardens on Montjuïc, along with the Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer garden and the Mossèn Costa i Llobera garden.
Nowadays, the Palacete Albéniz is used as the local residence for the royal family when they come to Barcelona on official visits, for other important guests of the city, and as the location for important municipal banquets and meetings. It is for this reason that the gardens are closed to the public on many occasions.
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Al entrar en estos jardines se tiene la impresión de que son propios de un rey. Y lo son, ya que a principios del siglo XX fueron creados para un rey. Los Jardines de Joan Maragall son elegantísimos, con avenidas arboladas, amplias extensiones de césped, parterres de broderie, fuentes ornamentales, numerosas esculturas al aire libre y un palacete que fue, y aún lo es, residencia real.
Los Jardines de Joan Maragall son un espacio lleno de serenidad, un mundo aparte donde solamente se percibe el canto de los pájaros y el sonido del agua que brota de las fuentes ornamentales. Si se entra por la puerta que hay en la avenida del Estadio, lo primero que encuentra el visitante son grandes parterres de césped donde crecen árboles altísimos. De vez en cuando, ligeros desniveles con bordes de piedra forman una suave bajada por el terreno hasta llegar al corazón de los jardines: el Palacete Albéniz.
Un espacio de la realeza
Este es el calificativo más adecuado para la explanada que se extiende delante de la fachada principal del palacete, flanqueada por dos amplias escalinatas que bajan desde la terraza donde se encuentra la puerta principal del edificio. Una serie de estanques con surtidores y cascadas comparten protagonismo con un largo parterre de broderie.
A ambos lados de este ajardinamiento clásico y afrancesado, dos avenidas de tilos recortados de forma cilíndrica enmarcan la delicadeza de las pequeñas vallas vegetales que dibujan espacios llenos de flores. En el fondo, como punto y final a la perspectiva de los jardines que se puede contemplar desde el palacete, el terreno, cubierto de césped, asciende suavemente y se convierte en la peana de un templete que da cobijo a Susanna al bany (Susana en el baño).
Rincones con personalidad
En todos los jardines, amplios caminos de sablón permiten pasear e ir descubriendo los diferentes espacios en los que se divide, que son bastantes y con mucha personalidad. La mayoría con esculturas que completan su belleza.
De este modo, en la zona situada al lado del Palacio Nacional, que es donde se encuentra la entrada principal de los jardines, una gran avenida de magnolias con un extenso estanque con surtidores en el centro nos conduce hasta los pies de la colina situada delante del palacete. Encima, una plaza semicircular rodeada de cipreses y presidida por Serena es la antesala de un pequeño anfiteatro.
La despedida
A los lados del palacete hay plazoletas recogidas, con fuentes y lavaderos adornados con delfines y putti rechonchos. Detrás del edificio se extiende una amplia pradera a la sombra de enormes pinos. Bajo las copas, unas cuantas mesitas con sillas invitan al visitante a realizar una pausa.
Al final de la pradera, una escalinata que desciende hasta la avenida de Santa Madrona comunica estos jardines con los de Laribal, otra joya de la montaña de Montjuic. Antes de iniciar el descenso, una espléndida vista de Barcelona despide al visitante.
Vegetación
La vegetación de los Jardines de Joan Maragall es, además de rica en especies, un buen ejemplo de la jardinería de principios del siglo XX y un espacio verde con grandes ejemplos arbóreos.
Encontramos tilos (Tilia tomentosa) y magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) flanqueando magníficas avenidas. También podemos disfrutar de grandes ejemplares de coníferas, como el cedro del Himalaya (Cedrus deodara), el cedro del Líbano (Cedrus libani ssp.), el pino piñonero (Pinus pinea), el pino carrasco (Pinus halepensis), el pino laricio (Pinus nigra ssp. austriaca), el ciprés (Cupressus sempervirens), el ciprés de Arizona (Cupressus glabra) y el ciprés de Monterrey (Cupressus macrocarpa).
En este jardín hay especies típicamente mediterráneas como el olivo (Olea europaea) y la encina (Quercus ilex), al lado de otras tan poco frecuentes como la Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei y Rhapis excelsa. En una de les plazoletas situada junto al palacete destaca un jinjolero (Zizipus jujuba) que forma parte del Catálogo de Árboles de Interés Local de Barcelona. Otras especies arbóreas presentes en estos jardines son las diferentes variedades de chopos (Populus alba, Populus alba "Pyramidalis", Populus simonii y Populus X canadensis), naranjos (Citrus aurantium), olmos (Ulmus minor) y pimenteros falsos (Shinus molle).
Arte y arquitectura
El antiguo pabellón real situado dentro de los jardines, conocido como Palacete Albéniz y construido en 1929, es un edificio de corte neoclásico obra del arquitecto Joan Moya. Construido detrás del Palacio Nacional, en 1970 se amplió y remodeló.
Además del edificio, en los Jardines de Joan Maragall destacan 32 esculturas de diferentes épocas y autores, algunas de ellas de gran calidad. Destacan Noia ajaguda (Chica acostada) (1950), de Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (Desnudo en el estanque) (1970), de Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (Ciervos) (1967), de Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (La aguadora) (1862), de Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (Dos tritones) (1929), de Josep Viladomat; Sussana al bany (Susana en el baño), de Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (Alegoría de la sardana) (1965), de Ernest Maragall; dos desnudos femeninos, uno frente al otro, llamados Dona a la cascada (Mujer en la cascada) (1970), el grupo Dones a la cascada (Mujeres en la cascada) (1970) y Nu femení (Desnudo femenino) (1965), de Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), de Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (Chica con gorro de baño) (1970), de Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (Mujer acostada) (1970), de Enric Monjo, y Dona amb nena (Mujer con niña) y Dona amb nen (Mujer con niño)(1970), de Luisa Granero.
Historia
Estos jardines tienen su origen en los que diseñó Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier alrededor del Pabellón Real, que se construyó en Montjuic dentro del recinto de la Exposición Internacional de 1929. El edificio tenía un doble objetivo: que Alfonso XIII dispusiera de un espacio para grandes recepciones y también de un lugar para descansar durante sus visitas a dicha exposición.
Una vez finalizada la exposición, se pensó en ubicar aquí el Museo de Música de la ciudad, un proyecto que no prosperó pero que sí determinó el nombre con el que se conoce el palacete, y durante muchos años también a los jardines que lo rodean: Albéniz, en honor al gran músico Isaac Albéniz.
En 1970, los jardines se ampliaron y pasaron a llamarse de Joan Maragall. Esta ampliación se llevó a cabo por Joaquim M. Casamor y el Servicio de Parques y Jardines de Barcelona. Éste es uno de los tres jardines de Montjuic que, junto con los de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer y Mossèn Costa i Llobera, se dedicaron en esa década a poetas catalanes.
Actualmente, el Palacete Albéniz es la residencia de la Familia Real española en Barcelona cuando vienen en visita oficial, de los invitados ilustres de la ciudad y sede de recepciones municipales de importancia. Es por este motivo que, en determinadas ocasiones, los jardines están cerrados al público.
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Testing Macro Extension ring on my Canon DSLR. Some with EFS lens on EF body with ring. Focus to infinity is shot, but the close up stuff works like a champ.
The church of St. Agatha at College with its polycromatic marble was built between 1600 and 1610 on an existing church, also dedicated to St. Agatha, in late-Renaissance style. The façade is by Natale Masuccio, and is decorated by frameworks on a light coloured background. It has a Greek cross plant, with splendid Baroque decorations includings frescoes by Luigi Borremans (18th century). The works of the adjacent Jesuit College (from which the church is named) began in 1589 and ended until the second half of the 19th century.
La chiesa di Sant'Agata al Collegio è un edificio religioso che si trova a Caltanissetta, nel centralissimo corso Umberto I. Deve il nome al contiguo collegio dell'ordine dei gesuiti.Sul finire del Cinquecento, Luisa Moncada e suo figlio, il principe Francesco insieme ad altre iniziative, invitarono in città l'ordine dei gesuiti, per il quale fecero edificare la chiesa, dedicata a sant'Agata, ed il relativo collegio. I lavori di costruzione del collegio iniziarono il 1 gennaio 1589 e si protrassero fino alla seconda metà del XIX secolo a causa di alterne vicende, mentre l'edificazione della chiesa iniziò nel 1600, e terminò nel 1610, proseguendo successivamente per i lavori di abbellimento.L'ampio edificio del collegio è oggi sede della biblioteca comunale Luciano Scarabelli e del liceo musicale.La facciata della chiesa risale al Seicento, tranne il portale del Marabitti, del Settecento, che è stato realizzato in pietra bianca, a contrasto con il materiale del resto della facciata, in pietra di Sabucina o pietra arenaria rossa. Il portale è coronato da un timpano spezzato, con al centro uno stemma sostenuto da due puttini.La chiesa ha pianta a croce greca, con quattro bracci di uguale lunghezza e quattro cappelle laterali. L'interno è rivestito da lastre di marmo o di stucco a imitazione del marmo, dove ricorre la sigla "IHS", identificativa dell'ordine gesuitico.
Caltanissetta is capital of the province of Caltanissetta located in the western interior of Sicily, Italy. Its inhabitants are called nisseni.The city, which in 2010 had a population of 60,267,is the fourteenth comune in Italy for its extension and the sixth highest comune and capital of province, the second after the sicilian city of Enna.The patron is Saint Michael the Archangel, to whom the cathedral is dedicated The town lies in an area of rolling hills with small villages and towns, crossed by the river Salso. It borders with the municipalities of Canicattì (AG), Delia, Enna (EN), Marianopoli, Mazzarino, Mussomeli, Naro (AG), Petralia Sottana (PA), Pietraperzia (EN), San Cataldo, Santa Caterina Villarmosa, Serradifalco and Sommatino. Its frazioni are the villages of Bifaria, Borgo Petilia, Borgo Canicassè Casale, Cozzo di Naro, Favarella, Prestianni, Villaggio Santa Barbara, Santa Rita and Xirbi.Caltanissetta is located in a geographically important position dominating the whole valley of the Salso. Morphologically aligned perfectly matches the surrounding area, very harsh and composition of limestone and clay. The city lies between three hills (Sant'Anna, Monte San Giuliano e Poggio Sant'Elia) which, unwilling to bow, form a basin into which part of the historical center and the south comprise.
Caltanissétta è un comune italiano di 61.511 abitanti, capoluogo della provincia omonima in Sicilia.È il sesto comune capoluogo di provincia più alto d'Italia, il secondo siciliano dopo Enna, nonché il quattordicesimo d'Italia per superficie. I suoi abitanti sono detti nisseni.La città di Caltanissetta si colloca in posizione di rilievo dominante l'intera Valle del Salso. Morfologicamente ricalca perfettamente le caratteristiche del territorio circostante, molto aspro e di composizione calcareo-argillosa.La città sorge fra tre colli (Sant'Anna, Monte San Giuliano e Poggio Sant'Elia) che, disposti ad arco, formano una conca entro la quale si sviluppa parte del centro storico e tutta la zona meridionale.
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This industrialised kitchen extension blends brilliantly with the period feel of it's listed host building; complimenting the brick work whilst remaining unafraid to claim an identity of it's own through the use of masculine grey powder coasted aluminium and a stainless steel kitchen design. The lean-to design of this structure works well; encapsulating the views of nature both across the garden space as well as from above as the canopy of trees shades the roof from extra heat.
For more information please visit us on Google+ or Facebook by searching AproposUK.
This simple and elegant extension sits companionably alongside it's period host building looking comfortable and blending well with the nature that surrounds it.
With our bespoke range whatever the aesthetics of your homes, as it is now, we can design a structure which compliments and enhances the way you already live.
For more information visit our blog; www.aproposapropos.com
Scrambled to get the shot for today... took some more dew shots in the morning, but wasn't "feeling" it... just couldn't capture what I had envisioned. So, thought of taking advantage of the fast moving clouds in the afternoon.. finding a location was the hard part.
Not entirely happy with the exposure, but, still learning this art of long exposures..
A lean to extension like the one pictured above has many uses and can help improve the quality of light and life in any home. With Apropos you lean-to will be specifically designed around you and your home thanks to our bespoke, tailored, service. We treat you like the individual you are not only helping you decide what structure best suits your host property but also modelling our designs around how you, and your family, will use your finished Apropos product.
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South extension of Clamber Up seen from the garden terrace.
This is my in-laws' family house at Spanish Point, Pembroke Parish, Bermuda.
This structure supports a room extension to the original house, and is built on stilts because of the steep slope of the hillside. It was cantilevered over the drive so that the room itself (out of view) could be on the same floor as the rest of main living space of the house. Although the house has a garage, this area is always used as a car port and sometimes as a patio area. The main living room is in this extension. (The wide angle of my lens setting has 'stretched' the extension.) The view looks NW.
This part of the garden is a narrow terrace, and just a small part of the whole garden. The garden continues up (to the R) and down (to the L) in a series of terraces.
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Photo
Brian Roy Rosen
Uploaded to Flickr December 13, 2015
© Darkroom Daze Creative Commons.
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This dining extension attached to the original kitchen of a London terrace house creates added space in the home whilst the remainder of the owners outside space can still be utilised well as a patio. This also allows dinner times to spill out into the garden during nice weather and makes for a great area in which to socialise with friends and family alike.
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Yoko Ono’s own relationship and partnership with John Lennon have given her access and opportunities she might never have achieved on her own, but her status as a pop icon has largely obscured her own achievements as an artist. Now where is this more obvious than in the area of filmmaking. Between 1966 and 1971, Ono made substantial contribution to avant-garde cinema,
Most of which are now a vague memory, even for those generally cognizant of developments in this field. With few expectations, her films have been out of circulation for years, but fortunately this situation needs to be changing; in the spring of 1989 the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a film retrospective along with a small show of objects - eighties versions of conceptual objects Ono has exhibited in 1966 and 1967 – and the American Federation of Arts re-released Ono’s films in the spring of 1991.
Except as a film-goer, Ono was not involved with film until the 1960s, though by this time she began to make her own films, she was an established artist. At the end of the fifties, after studying poetry and music at Sarah Lawrence College, she became part of a circle of avant-garde musicians (including John Cage and Merce Cunningham): in fact the “Chambers Street Series.” An influential concert series organized by LaMonte Young, was held at Ono’s loft at 112 Chambers. Ono’s activities in music led to her first public concert, A Grapefruit in the World of Park (at the Village Gate, 1961) and later that same year to an evening of performance events in which Yvonne Rainer stood up and sat down before a table stacked with dishes for ten minutes, then smashed the dishes “accompanied by a rhythmic background of repeated syllables, a tape recording of moans and words spoken backwards, and by an aria of high-pitched wails sung by Ono” (Barbara Haskell’s description in Yoko Ono: Objects, Films, the catalogue for the 1989 Whitney Museum show).
In the early sixties Ono was part of what became known as Fluxus, an art movement with roots in Dada, in Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, and energised by George Maciunas. The Fluxus artists were dedicated to challenging conventional definitions in the fine arts, and conventional relationships between artwork and viewer. In the early sixties, Ono made such works as Painting to See the Room through (1961), a canvas with an almost invisible hole in the centre through which one peered to see the room, and Painting to Hammer the Nail in (1961), a white wood panel that “viewers” were instructed to hammer nails into with an attached hammer. Instructions for dozens of these early pieces, and for later ones, are reprinted in Ono’s Grapefruit, which has appeared several times in several different editions- most recently in a Simon and Schuster/ Touchstone paperback edition, reprinted in 1979.
By the mid sixties, Ono had become interested in film, as a writer of mini film scripts (sixteen are reprinted in the Fall 1989 Film Quarterly), and as a contributor of three films to the Fluxfilm Program coordinated by Maciunas in 1966: two one-shot films shot at 2000 frames per second, Eyeblink and Match, and No.4, a sequence of buttocks of walking males and females. Along with several other films in the Fluxfilm Program (and two 1966 films by Bruce Baillie), Eyeblink and No.4 are, so far as I know, the first instances of what was to become a mini-genre of avant-garde cinema: the single-shot film (films that are or appear to be precisely one shot long), No.4 (Bottoms) (1966).
For the eighty minutes of No.4 (Bottoms), all we see are human buttocks in the act of walking, filmed in black and white, in close-up, so that each buttocks fills the screen: the crack between the cheeks and the crease between hams and legs divide the frame into four approximately equal sectors: we cannot see around the edges of the walking bodies. Each buttocks is filmed for a few seconds (often for fifteen seconds or so; sometimes for less than ten seconds), and is then followed immediately by the next buttocks. The sound track consists of interviews with people whose buttocks we see and with other people considering whether to allow themselves to be filmed; they talk about the project in general, and they raise the issue of the film’s probable boredom, which becomes a comment on viewers’ actual experience of the film. The sound track also includes segments of television news coverage of the project (which had considerable visibility in London in 1966), including an interview with Ono, who discusses the conceptual design of the film.
No. 4 (Bottoms) is fascinating and entertaining, especially in its revelation of the human body. Because Ono’s structuring of the visuals is rigorously serial, No.4 (Bottoms) is reminiscent of Edward Muybridge’s motion studies, though in this instance the “grid” against which we measure the motion is temporal, as well as implicitly spatial: though there’s no literal grid behind the bottoms, each bottom is framed in precisely the same way. What we realize from seeing these bottoms, and inevitably comparing them with one another- and with our idea of “bottom”- is both obvious and startling. Not only are people’s bottoms remarkably varied in their shape, colouring, and texture, but no two bottoms move in the same way.
On a more formal level No.4 (Bottoms) is interesting both as an early instance of the serial structuring that was to become so common in avant-garde film by the end of the sixties (in Snow’s Wavelength and Ernie Gehr’s Serene Velocity, 1970; Hollis Frampton’s Zorns Lemma, 1970 and Robert Huot’s Rolls: 1971, 1972; J.J. Murphey’s Print Generation, 1974…) and because Ono’s editing makes the experience of No.4 (Bottoms) more complex than simple descriptions of the film seem to suggest. As the film develops, particular bottoms and comments on the sound track are sometimes repeated, often in new contexts; and a variety of subtle interconnections between image and sound occur.
Like No.4 (Bottoms), Ono’s next long film, Film No.5 (Smile) (1968, fifty-one minutes), was an extension of work included in the Fluxfilm Program. Like her Eyeblink and Match- and like Chieko Shiomi’s Disappearing Music for Face (in which Ono’s smile gradually “disappears”), also on the Fluxfilm Program- Film No.5 (Smile) was shot with a high-speed camera. Unlike these earlier films, all of which filmed simple actions in black and white, indoors, at 2000 frames per second, Film No.5 (Smile) reveals John Lennon’s face, recorded at 333 frames per second for an extended duration, outdoors, in colour, and accompanied by a sound track of outdoor sounds recorded at the same time the imagery was recorded. Film No.5 (Smile) divides roughly into two halves, one continuous shot each. During the first half, the film is a meditation on Lennon’s face, which is so still that on first viewing I wasn’t entirely sure for a while that the film was live action and not an optically printed photograph of Lennon smiling slightly. Though almost nothing happens in any conventional sense, the intersection of the high-speed filming and our extended gaze creates continuous, subtle transformations: it is as if we can see Lennon’s expression evolve in conjunction with the flow of his thoughts. Well into the first shot, Lennon forms his lips into an “O”- a kiss perhaps- and then slowly returns to the slight smile with which the shot opens. During the second shot of Film No.5 (Smile), which differs from the first in subtleties of colour and texture (both shots are lovely), Lennon’s face is more active; he blinks several times, sticks his tongue out, smiles broadly twice, and seems to say “Ah!” Of course, while the second shot is more active than the first, the amount of activity remains minimal by conventional standards (and unusually so even for avant-garde film.) It is as though those of us in the theatre and Lennon are meditating on each other from opposite sides of the cinematic apparatus, joined together by Ono in a lovely, hypnotic stasis.
The excitement Ono and Lennon were discovering living and working together fuelled Two Virgins (1968) and Bed-In (1969), both of which were collaborations. Two Virgins enacts two metaphors for the two artists’ interaction. First, we see a long passage of Ono’s and Lennon’s faces superimposed, often with a third layer of leaves, sky, and water; then we see an extended shot of Ono and Lennon looking at each other, then kissing. Bed-In is a relatively conventional record of the Montreal performance; it includes a number of remarkable moments, most noteworthy among them, perhaps, Al Capp’s blatantly mean-spirited, passive-aggressive visit, and the song “Give Peace a Chance.” Nearly all of Ono’s remaining films were collaborations with John Lennon.
When the Whitney Museum presented Ono’s films at its 1989 retrospective, Rape (1969) provoked the most extensive critical commentary. The relentless seventy-seven-minute feature elaborates the single action of a small filmmaking crew coming upon a woman in a London park and following her through the park, along streets, and into her apartment where she becomes increasingly isolated by her cinematic tormentors. (Her isolation is a theme from the beginning since the woman speaks German; because the film isn’t subtitled, even we don’t know what she’s saying in any detail.) The film was, according to Ono, a candid recording by cinematographer Nic Knowland of a woman who was not willingly a part of this project. When Rape was first released, it was widely seen as a comment on Ono’s experience on being in the media spotlight with Lennon. Two decades later, the films seems more a parable about the implicit victimization of women by the institution of cinema.
Fly (1970) has a number of historical precedents- Willard Maas’s Geography of the Body (1943), most obviously- but it remains powerful and fascinating. At first, a fly is seen, in extreme close-up, as it “explores” the body of a nude woman (she’s identified as “Virginia Lust” in the credits); later more and more flies are seen crawling on the body, which now looks more like a corpse; and at the end, the camera pans up and “flies” out the window of the room. The remarkable sound track is a combination of excerpts from Ono’s vocal piece, Fly, and music composed by Lennon.
Up Your Legs Forever (1970) is basically a remake of No.4 (Bottoms), using legs, rather than buttocks: the camera continually pans up from the feet to the upper thighs of hundreds of men and women, as we listen to the sound of the panning apparatus and a variety of conversations about the project. Though UP Your Legs Forever has some interesting moments, it doesn’t have the drama or the humour of No.4 (Bottoms).
Ono and Lennon also collaborated on two Lennon films (whether a film is a “Lennon film” or and “Ono film” depends on whose basic concept instigated the project). Apotheosis (1970) is one of the most ingenious single-shot films ever made. A camera pans up the cloaked bodies of Lennon and Ono, then on up into the sky above a village, higher and higher across snow-covered fields (the camera was mounted in a hot-air balloon, which we never see- though we hear the device that heats the air) and then up into the clouds; the screen remains completely white for several minutes, and finally, once many members of the audience have given up on the film, the camera rises out into the sunny skyscraper above the clouds. The film is a test and reward of viewer patience and serenity. For Erection, a camera was mounted so that we can watch the construction of a building, in time-lapse dissolves from one image to another, several hours or days later. The film is not so much about the action of constructing a building (as a pixellated film of such a subject might be), as it is about the subtle, sometimes magical changes that take place between the dissolves. Erection is more mystery than documentation.
Imagine (1971)- not to be confused with the recent Imagine: John Lennon (1988, directed by Andrew Solt)- was the final Ono/Lennon cinematic collaboration: it’s a series of sketches accompanied by their music. Since 1971 Ono has made no films, though she did make a seven minute video documenting the response to a conceptual event at the Museum of Modern Art: Museum of Modern Art Show (1971). She has also made several music videos that document her process of recovering from Lennon’s death- Walking on Thin Ice (1981), Woman (1981), Goodbye Sadness (1982)- as well as records and art objects.
Of course, she remains one of the world’s most visible public figures and the most widely known conceptual artist.
I spoke with Ono at her office at the Dakota in May 1989.
MacDonald: Were you a moviegoer as a child?
Ono: I was a movie buff, yes. In prep school in Tokyo you were supposed to go directly home after school. But most kids often went to the movies. We used to hide our school badges and sneak into the theatre.
MacDonald: Do you remember what you saw?
Ono: Yes, I mostly saw French films. There was a group of kids who like American films- Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby- and there was another crowd of girls who thought they were intellectuals, and went to French films. I was in the French film group. We would go to see The Children of Paradise (1945), that sort of thing. It was a very exciting time. I loved those films.
MacDonald: Did you see some of the early French surrealist films from the twenties?
Ono: Those things I saw much later. We’re talking about when I was in high school in the late forties. I saw the surrealist films in the sixties in New York and Paris.
The films I saw in high school that were closest to surrealism wee the Cocteau films, Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus (1950). Those films really gave me some ideas.
MacDonald: The earliest I know of you in connection with film is the sound track you did for Taka Iimura’s Love in 1963 by hanging the microphone out the window. I know the later Fluxfilm reels that were made in 1966, but did the Fluxus group get involved with film before that?
Ono: No. I think that one of the reasons why we couldn’t make films or didn’t think of making films was that we felt that it was an enormously expensive venture. At that time, I didn’t even have the money to buy canvas. I’d go to army surplus shops and get that canvas that’s rolled up. During that period, I felt that getting a camera to do a film was unrealistic.
MacDonald: Grapefruit includes three tiny descriptions of conceptual film projects that are identified as excerpts from “Six Film Scripts by Yoko Ono.” Were there others, or was the indication that there were six scripts a conceptual joke?
Ono: No, there were six at first; then later there were others. At the time I wrote those scripts, I sent most of them to Jones Mekas, to document them. Actually, that’s why I have copies of them now.
MacDonald: There seems to be confusion about the names and numbers of the films on the Fluxfilm Program, and about who did them. I assume you made the two slow-motion films, Eyeblink and Match, and the first film about buttocks, No.4.
Ono: Those are mine, yes.
MacDonald: Did people collaborate in making those films, or did everybody work individually and then just put the films onto those two Fluxus reels?
Ono: One day George (Maciunas) called me and said he’s got the use of a high-speed camera and it’s a good opportunity, so just come over (to Peter Moore’s apartment on East 36th St) and make some films. So I went there, and the high-speed camera was set up and he said, “Give me some ideas!” Think of some ideas for films!” There weren’t many people around, at the beginning just George and…
MacDonald: Peter Moore is credited on a lot of the slow-motion films.
Ono: Yeah, Peter Moore was there, and Barbara Moore came too. And other people were coming in- I forget who they were- but not many. When I arrived, I was the only person there, outside of George. I don’t know how George managed to get the high-speed camera. I don’t think he paid for it. But it was the kind of opportunity that if you can get it, you grab it. So I’m there, and I got the idea of Match and Eyeblink and we shot these. Eyeblink didn’t come out too well. It was my eye, and I didn’t like my eye.
MacDonald: I like that film a lot. Framed the way it is, the eye becomes erotic; it’s suggestive of body parts normally considered more erotic.
Ono: The one of those high-speed films I liked best was one you didn’t mention: Smoking.
MacDonald: The one by Joe Jones.
Ono: Yes. I thought that one was amazing, so beautiful; it was like frozen smoke.
MacDonald: There’s a film on that reel called Disappearing Music for Face…
Ono: Chieko Shiomi’s film, yeah.
MacDonald: I understand you were involved in that one too.
Ono: Well, that was my smile. That was me. What happened was that Chieko Shiomi was in Japan at the time. She was coming here often; it wasn’t like she was stationed in Japan all the time, but at the time I think she had just left to go to Japan. Then this high-speed camera idea came up, and when George was saying, “Quick, quick, ideas,” I said, “Well, how about smile”; and he said, “NO, that you can’t do, think of something else.” “But,” I said, “Smile is a very important one, I really want to do it,” because I always had that idea, but George keeps saying, “No you can’t do that one.” Finally, he said, “Well, OK , actually I wanted to save that for Chieko Shiomi because she had the same idea. But I will let you perform.” So that’s me smiling. Later I found out that her concept was totally different from what I wanted to do. Chieko Shiomi’s idea is beautiful; she catches the disappearance of a smile. At the time I didn’t know what her title was.
MacDonald: I assume No.4 was shot at a different time.
Ono: Yes. At the time I was living at 1 West 100th Street. It was shot in my apartment. My then husband Tony Cox and Jeff Perkins helped.
MacDonald: The long version of the buttocks film, No.4 (Bottoms), is still amazing.
Ono: I think that film had a social impact at the time because of what was going on in the world and also because of what was going on in the film world. It’s a pretty interesting film really.
Do you know the statement I wrote about taking any film and burying it underground for fifty years [see Grapefruit (New York; Simon and Schuster/ Touchstone, 1971), Section 9, “On Film No.4,” paragraph 3, and “On Film No.5 and Two Virgins,” paragraph 2]? It’s like wine. Any film, any cheap film, if you put it underground for fifty years, becomes interesting [laughter]. You just take a shot of people walking, and that’s enough: the weight of history is so incredible.
MacDonald: When No.4 (Bottoms) was made, the idea of showing a lot of asses was completely outrageous. Bottoms were less-respected, less-revealed part of the anatomy. These days things have changed. Now bottoms are OK- certain bottoms. What I found exhilarating about watching the film (maybe because I’ve always been insecure about my bottom!) is that after you see hundreds of bottoms, you realize that during the whole time you watched the film, you never saw the “correct,” marketable jean-ad bottom. You realize that nobody’s bottom is the way bottoms are supposed to be: the droop, or there are pimples- something is “wrong.” I think the film has almost as much impact now as it did then- though in a different way.
Ono: Well, you see, it’s not just to do with bottoms. For me the film is less about bottoms than about a certain bear, a beat you didn’t see in films, even in avant-garde films, then.
This is something else, but I remember one beautiful film where the stationary camera just keeps zooming toward a wall…
MacDonald: Wavelength? Michael Snow’s film?
Ono: Right, Michael Snow. That’s an incredibly beautiful film. A revolution in itself really. Bottoms film was a different thing, but just as revolutionary I think. It was about a beat, about movement. The beat in bottoms film is comparable to a rock beat. Even in the music world there wasn’t that beat until rock came. It’s the closest thing to the heartbeat. I tried to capture that again with Up Your Legs Forever. But in No.4 (Bottoms) it worked much better. Maybe it was the bottoms. That film has a basic energy. I couldn’t capture it in Up Your Legs Forever.
MacDonald: No.4 (Bottoms) plays with perceptions and memory in different ways. For a while it seems like a simple, serial structure, one bottom after another. Then at a certain point you realize, Oh I’ve seen that bottom before… but was it with this sound? No, I don’t think so. Later you may see another bottom a second time, clearly with the same sound. A new kind of viewing experience develops. Did you record all the bottoms and the spoken material for the track, and then later, using that material, develop a structure? It seems almost scored.
Ono: Yes. I spent a lot of hours editing. It wasn’t just put together. The sequence was important. A sympathetic studio said that I could come at midnight or whenever no one was using the facilities, to do the editing. I got a lot of editing time free; that’s how I was able to finish it.
MacDonald: On the sound track some of the participants talk about the process of getting people to show up to have their bottoms recorded, but I’m not completely sure what the process was. You put an ad in a theatrical paper apparently.
Ono: Well, we had an ad, yes, but most of the people were friends of friends. It became a fantastic event. You have to understand, the minute the announcement was made, there was a new joke about it in the newspapers everyday, and everybody was into it. We filmed at Victor Musgrave’s place; he was a very good friend who was very generous in letting me use his townhouse.
MacDonald: Did you select bottoms or did you use everybody that was filmed? Were there really 365 bottoms involved?
Ono: I didn’t select bottoms. There was not enough for 365 anyway. And the impact of the film as a happening was already getting lost from filming for so long. And there was the rental of the camera and the practical aspect of the shooting schedule. At a certain point I said, “Oh well, the number’s conceptual anyway, so who cares. It’s enough!”
MacDonald: I assume that when you did the early Fluxus version of No.4, you just followed people walking across an apartment. For the long film you’d built a machine to do the filming, which allowed you to film in more controlled close-up; we can’t see around the sides of the bodies the way we can in the earlier film.
Ono: Well, in the first No.4 I was pretty close too. But, as you say, it wasn’t really perfect. In London we did it almost perfect. In London we did it almost perfectly. My idea both times was very visual. All my films had very visual concepts behind them in the beginning. I mean No.4 (Bottoms) has many levels of impact- one being political- but originally I simply wanted to cover the screen with one object, with something that was moving constantly. There’s always a background. The closest you get to what I mean s like some macho guy, a cowboy or something, standing with his back to the screen, but you always see a little background. The screen is never covered; so I thought, if you don’t leave a background it might be like the whole screen is moving. I just wanted to have that experience. As you say, it didn’t work in the early version, but it was the first idea I had for the film actually.
And also, the juxtaposition of the movement of the four sections of the bottoms was fascinating, I thought.
MacDonald: No.4 (Bottoms) reminds me of Edward Muybridge’s motion photographs.
Ono: Oh I see, yeah.
MacDonald: Was the finished film shown a lot?
Ono: Well, I finally got an OK from the censor and we showed it in Charing Cross Road. Then some American Hollywood producer came and said he wanted to buy it and take it to the United States. Also, he wanted me to make 365 breasts, and I said, if we’re going to do breasts, then I will do a sequence of one breast, you know, fill the screen with a single breast over and over, but I don’t think that was erotic enough for him. He was thinking eroticism; I was thinking about visual, graphic concepts- a totally different thing. I was too proud to make two breasts [laughter]. I think there was an attempt to take the bottoms film to the United States, but it was promptly confiscated by the censor.
MacDonald: At customs?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: There’s a mention on the sound track that you were planning to do other versions of that film in other countries, and the film ends with the phrase, “To Be Continued.” Was that a concept for other films, or were there some specific plans for follow-ups?
Ono: Well you see, all my films do have a conceptual side. I have all these scripts, and I get excited just to show them to people because my hope is that maybe they will want to make some of them. That would be great. I mean most of my films are film instructions; they were never made actually. Just as film instructions, I think they are valid, but it wouldn’t be very good if somebody makes them. I don’t have to make them myself. And also, each film I made had a projection of future plans built into the idea. If somebody picks up on one of them, that’s great.
At the time I was making films, what I felt I was doing was similar to what The Rocky Horror Picture Show [1975] did later. I wanted to involve the audience directly in new ways.
MacDonald: How did Film No.5 (Smile) come about?
Ono: When I went to London, I still kept thinking about the idea of smile, so when I had the chance, I decided to do my version. Of course, until John and I got together, I could never have rented a high-speed camera. Well, maybe if I’d looked into it, I could have. I don’t know, but I thought it would be too expensive.
MacDonald: Did you know Lennon well at the point when you did Film No.5 (Smile)?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: Because I wondered whether you made the film because you wanted to capture a certain complexity in him, or whether the complexity that’s revealed in that seemingly simple image is a result of what the high-speed camera reveals, or creates, as it films,
Ono: Well, certainly I knew John was complex person. But the film wasn’t so much about his complexity as a person. I was trying to capture the complexity of a visual experience. What you see in that film is very similar to how you perceive somebody when you are on acid. We had done acid trips together, and that gave me the idea. I wondered how do you capture this?
MacDonald: It’s a beautiful film.
Ono: Well, of course, you know from the statements I made about Smile [see Ono, Grapefruit, “On Film No.5 & Two Virgins”] that my idea was really very different from the film I finally made. My idea was to do everybody’s smile. But when I met John, I thought, doing everybody’s smile is going to be impossible; and he can represent everybody’s smile.
MacDonald: What I find incredible about Smile is that as you watch John’s face, it’s almost as though you can see his mind working. I don’t know whether it’s an optical illusion, maybe it’s created by the way that the camera works. But it’s almost as though as you watch, the expression is changing every second.
Ono: I know. It’s incredible, isn’t it? Of course I didn’t know what exactly a high-speed camera would do. I knew in general, but I didn’t know what the exact effect would be. And, of course, I never would have known unless George Maciunas had rented a high-speed camera and called me up. George was a very interesting person. He had a very artistic mind. I never knew why he didn’t create his own art; he always wanted to take the role of helping create other people’s work. But that combination was very good; he not only executed what we wanted, he gave us the opportunity to look into the areas we would never have looked into. He had that kind of mind.
MacDonald: With Two Virgins you and John began collaborating on films and in the next few years there was a whole series of collaborations. Judging from the credits on the films, I assume that one or the other of you would get an idea and then both of you would work the idea out, and whoever had the original idea for a particular film- that film was theirs. Normally, the directorial credit is considered the most important one, but on these films there’s a more basic credit. It might be “Film by Yoko Ono,” then “Directed and produced by John and Yoko.” Am I correct: was it that whoever had the original concept for the film, that’s whose film it was?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: I remember reading years ago in a collection of Rolling Stone interviews that when you and John got involved with politics and in particular with the Bed-In, It was partly because Peter Watkins had written you a letter. Is that how you remember it?
Ono: Well, yes, Peter Watkin’s letter was a confrontation to us, and at the time we had a conversation about what we felt we had been doing politically: “Well, I was doing this, Yes I was doing that.” As a Beatle, John was always asked, “What is your position about the Vietnam War,” or something else; and I think that their manager, Brian Epstein, was very concerned that they wouldn’t make any statements, and so they didn’t make any direct statements. But a covert statement was made through an album cover that was censored, as you know. And I was standing in Trafalgar Square, in a bag, for peace and all that. So separately we had that awareness, and we were expressing it in the ways that we could. I was doing it more freely because it was easier for me. So we were comparing notes after getting the letter, and then we were saying, “Well what about doing something together,” which was the Bed-In (and the film Bed-In), so Peter Watkin’s letter definitely did mean something to us.
MacDonald: How much control did you (or you and John) have over the way Bed-In looks? You credit a large crew on that film. What was your part in the final film, other than as performers?
Ono: We always maintained careful control over the finished films. I was generally in charge of editing, which I did for that film, and for others, frame by frame. I mean I would have a film editor working with me- I don’t know the technology- but I would be very specific about what I wanted. When Jonas [Mekas] did the John and Yoko screenings at Anthology [Anthology Film Archives], I had three editing machines and editors brought into our hotel room, and I edited Bed-In there because of the deadline.
I enjoy the editing part of filmmaking most of all; that’s where the films really get made.
MacDonald: Rape is often talked about as a parable of the media intruding into your lives, but when I saw it again the other week, it struck me as very similar to pieces in Grapefruit.
Ono: Well, they keep saying that. I’ll tell you what happened. By the time that I actually got to make the film, John and I were together, and the reporters were hounding us, but the Rape concept was something I thought of before John and I got together.
MacDonald: In Grapefruit there’s “Black Piece II,” a part of which is “Walk behind a person for four hours.”
Ono: It was that kind of thing, right. But it was also a film script
[“Film No.5 (Rape or Chase)”]
MacDonald: How candid is the Rape footage? It no longer looks candid to me.
Ono: It was completely candid- except for the effects we did later in the editing. The girl in the film did not know what was happening. Her sister was in on it, so when she calls her sister on the phone, her sister is just laughing at her and the girl doesn’t understand why. Nic Knowland did the actual shooting. I wasn’t there. Everything was candid, but I kept pushing him to bring back better material. The type of material he brought back at first was something like he would be standing on the street, and when a group of girls passed by, he would direct the camera to them. The girls would just giggle and run away, and he wouldn’t follow. I kept saying he could do better than that, be he actually had a personal problem doing the film because he was a Buddhist and a peacenik: he didn’t want to intrude on people’s privacy. I remember John saying later that no actress could have given a performance that real.
I’ve done tons of work, and I don’t have time to check it all out, but I wish I could check about this strange thing, which is that a lot of my works have been a projection of my future fate. It frightens me. It simply frightens me. I don’t want to see Rape now. I haven’t seen the Rape film in a long time, but just thinking about the concept of it frightens me because now I’m in that position, the position of the woman in the film.
MacDonald: In the video Walking on Thin Ice, we see a similar scene, but with you.
Ono: I know. And why did I think of that song? After I wrote that song all sorts of trouble started to happen, all of which was somehow related to the song, that feeling of walking on thin ice. Sometimes I intentionally try to write something positive. But in a situation like that, art comes first. I really thought “Walking on Thin Ice” was a good song when it came to me. I had no qualms about recording it. The artistic desire of expressing something supersedes the worry, I suppose, and you think, ah it’s nothing, it’s fine, it’s just a nice song or something; and then it turns out that it becomes my life and I don’t want that.
Just recently I was in this film where I performed as a bag lady [Homeless, by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, unreleased at time of interview]. I was a bit concerned what it might mean to enact a bag lady, in terms of future projections. But I reasoned that there are actors who die many times in films, but live long lives, so actually enacting death makes their real lives longer. Well, in the first scene it was a beautiful April day, one of those I’m-glad-to-be-in-New-York days, and I’m wearing these rags and I’m pushing an empty baby carriage in this beautiful green environment. And as I was doing it, I remembered the song “Greenfield Morning” and the line, “I pushed an empty baby carriage all over the city.” That was the first song we recorded for Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, and I think it’s in Grapefruit, too- I mean the instruction “Push an empty baby carriage” [See “City Piece: Walk all over the city with an empty baby carriage” (Winter, 1961) near the end of the first section (Music) of Grapefruit]. So I’m pushing the baby carriage and I’m thinking I don’t want to know about this. That aspect of projection is interesting, isn’t it?
MacDonald: Yes.
Ono: If you are somebody who makes films with a commercial concern or other concerns, other than just inspiration, maybe that sort of thing wouldn’t happen. I don’t know. But inspiration is very much connected with your life in past and future.
MacDonald: Apotheosis is a gorgeous film. It’s one of the collaborations that’s listed as John’s film, though the idea of stripping things away until you’ve got a white screen is very much like some of you work.
Ono: Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I think some of the instructions are already there in Grapefruit, or maybe not, maybe it’s one of the instructions that haven’t been published [Ono is referring to the second version of her film script, “Film No.1 (A Walk to the Taj Mahal)”]. There was a constant feeling of wanting to take an object that’s on the ground- not necessarily an object, could be a person- in fact the original idea was a drunken guy walking in a snowy field; you don’t see the drunken guy, but the camera suggests that he’s drunk because of the way it moves. So he walks and sways, and finally the camera goes up in the sky. When we did the cover for the “Two Virgins” album, where we were both naked, one of us said, “Why don’t we make a film where the camera moves from the ground up, shooting our naked bodies, and then just goes up in the air.” Later, John said, “Well, let’s make one where the camera goes up.” So the idea stemmed from that. What happened, of course, was that we didn’t expect the balloon film to be the way it was turned out. We went up in the balloon, and it happened to be a snowy day.
MacDonald: You were in the balloon with the camera?
Ono: Up to a certain point. The part where you go into the cloud, and then break out of the cloud, was taken later. The footage that came back from the lab was beautiful. It was just something that happened naturally, the dogs barking, everything that happened- it was an incredible experience. We didn’t expect it was going to be that beautiful. A lot of things just happen, you know.
MacDonald: If you allow them to, I guess.
Ono: Yes!
MacDonald: Fly seems almost the opposite of Apotheosis in a way; it seems…
Ono: Very much intentionally calculated?
MacDonald: Right.
Ono: It’s true
MacDonald: You did the sound [for the vocal piece Fly] before you did the film. Had you had the idea in mind then?
Ono: I was always thinking about the idea of fly. Actually, I was always fascinated with the pun “fly and “fly” in English. There was also a conceptual event about flies and where they fly to.
MacDonald: The piece you did for the Museum of Modern Art?
Ono: Yes. Did you see that Museum of Modern Art catalogue? [A 112-page, one foot by one foot catalogue- the title seems to be Museum of Modern FArt (Ono is carrying a shopping bag with the letter “F” directly beneath the Museum of Modern Art marquee)- which details her concept at length; the catalogue was designed by Ono and produced by Michael Gross.] At the end of that, I talk about how to fly,
MacDonald: I know the video with the sandwich-board guy in front of the Museum of Modern Art who interviews people about the Yoko Ono show that “isn’t there” [The Museum of Modern Art Show]. In the text for that piece, you explain how some flies were exposed to your perfume and let loose and that people are following those flies around to see where they land.
Ono: The catalogue was made for that event; it had all sorts of interesting stuff in it, about how to fly and all that. All the pages are postcards that you could mail, so the catalogue and Fly piece could fly all over the place.
MacDonald: So MoMA had this on sale?
Ono: No, no, no, no! MoMA would not do it. MoMA was busy saying to people, “There’s no Yoko Ono show here.” People would come in and ask, is there a Yoko Ono show, and they would say no. They were very upset; they didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t sell the book anywhere. Nobody bought it, so I have piles of it.
MacDonald: Earlier, in the mid sixties, you did a number of descriptions of environmental boxes that the viewer would go inside of and images would be projected on the outside. Eyeblink was involved in a number of those descriptions, and another was called “Fly”. I guess the idea was that a viewer would go inside the box and on all sides you would project images that would create the sensation that the viewer was flying.
Ono: How do you know about those boxes?
MacDonald: I found the descriptions in the Fluxus Codex, in the Yoko Ono section [See John Hendricks, Fluxus Codex (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), p.418 for the descriptions]. Was either piece ever built?
Ono: They were never built. I haven’t seen these ideas since I did them. Whenever I had an idea, I sent it to George Maciunas. He probably kept them. I don’t even have the originals for those. I’ll have to get this book. You know, I have this thing about reading about me. When something about me is in a book, I mostly don’t want to know about it.
MacDonald: One of the interesting things about watching the film Fly is that one’s sense of what the body we’re seeing is about, and what the film is about, is constantly changing.
Ono: A cartoon in a newspaper gave me the idea. There’s this woman with a low-cut dress, and a guy is looking at her, and the guy’s wife says, “What are you looking at!” and the guy says, “Oh, I’m looking at a fly on her.” I wanted the film to be an experience where you’re always wondering, am I following the movement of the fly or am I looking at the body? I think that life is full of that kind of thing. We’re always sort of deceiving ourselves about what we’re really seeing.
MacDonald: Do you know the Willard Maas film, Geography of the Body? It’s all close-ups of bodies, framed so that you can’t quite tell what body part you’re looking at- but they all look erotic. Eyeblink is a little like that, and Fly is full of the same effect. If you go close enough, every part of the body looks the same, and they’re all equally erotic.
Ono: Oh, there’s an incredible film instruction that has to do with that close-up idea. It’s a travelogue [“Film No.13 (Travelogue”]. You have a travelogue to Japan or somewhere, and you say, “Well, now I’m on Mount Fuji,” and there’s an incredible close-up of stones; and then, “We bathed in a mixed bath,” and you see just steam- you get it?- and then, “We ate noodles,” and you see an incredible close-up of noodles… so in effect you can make a travelogue of any country without going out of your apartment! “Then we saw geisha girls,” and you see an incredible close-up of hair [laughter]. I wanted to make that, but I just never got around it.
MacDonald: Freedom [1970], the little one-minute film of you trying to take your bra off, was made the same year as Fly.
Ono: Yeah, isn’t that a great little film?
MacDonald: It’s so paradoxical. You show freedom as the ability to try to break free, which implies that you’re never really free.
Ono: Right, exactly.
MacDonald: You mentioned earlier that you didn’t think Up Your Legs Forever worked as well as No.4 (Bottoms). I thought it was interesting to see that people’s one leg is very different from their other leg.
Ono: The best thing about that film is the title, I think. My first vision for that film was like going up all the legs, up, up, up, to eternity. [“Film No. 12 (Esstacy)”- the misspelling of “ecstasy” is left as it was in the original film script, at Ono’s request]. But in making it, that vision got lost because of what was necessary to film the legs. I don’t know how you can do what I originally had in mind.
MacDonald: Jonas and Adolfas Mekas are thanked at the end of Up Your Legs Forever.
Ono: Because they did the editing. That was one of the few films I didn’t edit myself.
MacDonald: Somebody mentioned to me the other day, and I assume it’s not true, that Erection was originally a film about John’s penis. Was there a film like that?
Ono: Yes, there was. But it wasn’t called Erection. I think it was called Self Portrait, and it wasn’t an erection, it was just a long shot of his penis. That was his idea. The funny thing was that Self Portrait was never questioned by customs because of it’s title, and Erection, which was about the erection of a building , was questioned.
MacDonald: Is there a relation between the 1971 version of Imagine and the recent Imagine: John Lennon?
Ono: There’s no relationship. We wanted to make surrealistic film in the tradition of Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau. It was John’s idea to say just one or two words at the beginning, and make the reset of the film silent, like silent movie. I liked that idea and we did it. I think that now it’s more or less known as a forefather of MTV. Each scene came from some idea John or I had. It was really a collaboration between John and me.
MacDonald: Are you involved in film now? Are you planning to make films? You made several videos in the early eighties, but it’s been a while since you’ve made a film.
Ono: I don’t know; it might get to that. I’m one of those people who can’t do something unless I’m totally motivated. That’s one of the reasons I jump from one medium to another. I did the Whitney Museum show, and suddenly all the inspiration is sculptural; and then last night or the night before, I went to the studio to do some music. But I’m not getting that feeling like I gotta make a film- except for The Tea Party [the film script “Film No.7 (Tea Party)”]: for years I’ve been wanting to make that one, but because of the technical difficulties I don’t seem to be able to get it together. I think one of the reasons I’m not making more films is that I’ve done so many film scripts. I’d like to see one of them made by somebody else. Maybe one day out of the blue I’ll feel it so strongly that I’ll make a film myself again.
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Jardins de Joan Maragall
Quan s'entra en aquests jardins hom té la impressió que són propis d'un rei. I ho són, ja que van ser creats per a un rei a principis del segle XX. Els Jardins de Joan Maragall són elegantíssims, amb avingudes arbrades, àmplies extensions de gespa, parterres de broderie, fonts ornamentals, nombroses escultures a l'aire lliure i un palauet que fou, i encara és, residència reial.
Els Jardins de Joan Maragall són un espai ple de serenitat, un món a part on solament es percep el refilar dels ocells i el so de l'aigua que raja de les fonts ornamentals. S'hi s'entra per la porta que hi ha a l'avinguda de l'estadi; el primer que troba el visitant són gran parterres de gespa on creixen arbres altíssims. De tant en tant, lleugers desnivells vorejats de pedra van baixant suaument pel terreny fins a arribar al cor dels jardins: el Palauet Albéniz.
Un espai reialesc
Aquest és el qualificatiu més adient per a l'esplanada que s'estén al davant de la façana principal del palauet, flanquejada per dues àmplies escalinates que baixen des de la terrassa on hi ha la porta principal de l'edifici. Una seqüència d'estanys amb brolladors i cascades comparteixen protagonisme amb un llarg parterre de broderie.
Als costats d'aquest enjardinament clàssic i afrancesat, dues avingudes de til·lers retallats de manera cilíndrica emmarquen la delicadesa de les petites tanques vegetals que dibuixen espais plens de flors. Al fons, com a punt i final de la perspectiva dels jardins que es pot contemplar des del palauet, el terreny, cobert de gespa, s'enfila suaument i esdevé la peanya d'un templet on s'aixopluga Susanna al bany.
Racons amb personalitat
Arreu dels jardins, amples camins de sauló permeten passejar i anar descobrint els diferents espais en què es divideix, que n'hi ha uns quants, i amb força personalitat, la majoria amb escultures que n'arrodoneixen la bellesa.
Així, a la zona situada al costat del Palau Nacional, que és on hi ha l'entrada principal dels jardins, una gran avinguda de magnòlies amb un llarg estany amb brolladors al mig condueix fins als peus de turó que hi ha davant del palauet. Al damunt, una plaça semicircular envoltada de xiprers i presidida per Serena fa d'avantsala d'un petit amfiteatre.
El comiat
Als costats del palauet hi ha placetes recollides, amb fonts i safarejos ornamentats amb dofins i putti grassonets. Al darrere de l'edifici s'estén una àmplia praderia ombrejada per enormes pins. Sota les capçades, unes quantes tauletes amb cadires conviden a fer una pausa.
Al final de la praderia, una escalinata que baixa fins a l'avinguda de Santa Madrona comunica aquests jardins amb els de Laribal, una altra joia de la muntanya de Montjuïc. Abans d'iniciar el descens, una gran vista sobre Barcelona acomiada el visitant.
Vegetació
La vegetació dels Jardins de Joan Maragall és, a més de rica en espècies, un bon exemple de la jardineria de principis del segle XX i un espai verd amb grans exemplars arboris.
Hi ha til·lers (Tilia tomentosa) i magnòlies (Magnolia grandiflora) flanquejant magnífiques avingudes, i grans exemplars de coníferes, com el cedre de l'Himàlaia (Cedrus deodara), el cedre del Líban (Cedrus libani ssp.), el pi pinyer (Pinus pinea), el pi blanc (Pinus halepensis), la pinassa (Pinus nigra ssp. austriaca), el xiprer (Cupressus sempervirens), el xiprer d'Arizona (Cupressus glabra) i el xiprer de Monterrey (Cupressus macrocarpa)
En aquest jardí hi ha espècies tan mediterrànies com l'olivera (Olea europaea) i l'alzina (Quercus ilex), al costat d'altres tan poc freqüents com les Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei i Rhapis excelsa. En una de les placetes que hi als costats del palauet destaca un ginjoler (Zizipus jujuba) que pertany al catàleg d'Arbres d'Interès Local de Barcelona. Diferents espècies de pollancres (Populus alba, Populus alba pyramidalis, Populus simonii i Populus X canadensis), el taronger (Citrus aurantium), l'om (Ulmus minor) i el pebrer bord (Shinus molle) són altres espècies arbòries presents en aquests jardins.
Art i arquitectura
L'antic pavelló reial que hi ha dins els jardins, conegut com Palauet Albéniz i construït l'any 1929, és un edifici de tall neoclàssic, obra de l'arquitecte Joan Moya. Construït al darrere del Palau Nacional, el 1970 fou ampliat i remodelat.
Juntament amb l'edifici, als Jardins de Joan Maragall destaquen un total de 32 escultures de diferents èpoques i autors, algunes de gran qualitat. Destaquen Noia ajaguda (1950), de Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (1970), d'Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (1967), de Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (1862), de Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (1929), de Josep Viladomat; Susanna al bany (, de Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (1965), d'Ernest Maragall; dos nus femenins, l'un al davant de l'altre, anomenats Dona a la cascada (1970), el grup Dones a la cascada (1970) i Nu femení (1965), d'Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), de Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (1970), de Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (1970), d'Enric Monjo, i Dona amb nena i Dona amb nen (1970), de Luisa Granero.
Història
Aquests jardins tenen el seu origen en els que va dissenyar Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier al voltant del Pavelló Reial que es va construir a Montjuïc dins el recinte de l'Exposició Internacional de 1929. L'objectiu de l'edifici va ser doble: que Alfons XIII disposes d'un espai per a grans recepcions i també d'un lloc on fer una pausa i reposar una estona durant les seves visites a la dita exposició.
Acabada la mostra, es va pensar ubicar-hi el Museu de la Música de la ciutat, un projecte que no va prosperar però que sí que va determinar el nom amb el qual es coneix el palauet i amb el qual, durant molts anys, es van conèixer els jardins que l'envolten: Albéniz, en honor al gran músic Isaac Albéniz.
L'any 1970 els jardins es van ampliar i van passar a anomenar-se Joan Maragall. Aquesta ampliació va ser duta a terme per Joaquim M. Casamor i el Servei de Parcs i Jardins de Barcelona. Aquest és un dels tres jardins de Montjuïc que, juntament amb els de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer i Mossèn Costa i Llobera, van ser dedicats durant aquesta dècada a poetes catalans.
Actualment, el Palauet Albéniz és la residència de la família reial espanyola a Barcelona quan són en visita oficial, dels convidats il·lustres de la ciutat i seu de recepcions municipals de rellevància. És per aquests motius que en determinades ocasions els jardins estan tancats al públic.
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As one enters these gardens, they give the impression that they are the gardens of a king. This is true, as these gardens were created for a king at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The elegant Joan Maragall gardens are made up of wooded avenues, wide lawns, parterres de broderie, ornamental fountains, numerous outdoor sculptures and a small palace that was once and still remains a residence of the royal family.
The Joan Maragall gardens are full of serenity; they are a different world where the only thing that can be heard is the singing of the birds and the sound of the water as it bubbles out of the ornamental fountains. If you enter the gardens through the entrance on the Avinguda del Estadio, the first thing that you come across are tall trees and large stretches of lawn. As you walk on down into the heart of the gardens, the slight slope is occasionally broken up by stone-lined tiers that help you in your descent. The Palacete Albéniz.
The royal grounds
This is the most appropriate description for this open, grassy area that extends in front of the small palace, flanked by two wide staircases that descend from the patio, leading you towards the front door of the building. A series of ponds with fountains and waterfalls share the leading role with the long parterre de broderie.
Two rows of perfectly pruned lime trees line these classic French gardens, emphasising the delicateness of the small bushes that border the beds brimming with flowers. Upon the immense spread of lawn that marks the very end of the garden, there is a structure that shelters the sculpture of Susanna al bany (Susana in the bath). This statue is visible from the small palace.
Areas with personality
Throughout the whole garden there are wide sand pathways that lead you to the different areas of the park, each one with distinct characteristics. The true beauty of the majority of these areas is accented by the sculptures.
In the area of the Palau Nacional, at the main entrance to the gardens there is a wide avenue of magnolias and a large pond with fountains in the centre. This avenue leads us up to the bottom of the hill that is next to the small palace. At the top of this hill, there is a semicircular square surrounded by cypresses and presided over by the sculpture Serena that is seen as the lobby to the small amphitheatre.
The farewell
On the either side of the small palace there are tiny, quiet squares, with fountains and basins decorated with dolphins and cherubs. Behind the building, enormous pine trees provide shade to a large grassy area. Below these pine trees there are tables and chairs that invite the visitor to stop and have a little break.
There is a flight of stairs at the end of the lawn that leads us down to the Avinguda de Santa Madrona. This avenue connects these gardens to those of Laribal, the latter being another precious asset to the Montjuïc Mountain. Just before walking down these steps an exceptional view of Barcelona bids us farewell.
Vegetation
Apart from the great variety of species and trees that are planted in the Joan Maragall gardens, it is a good example of typical early-twentieth century gardens, a green space with very large trees.
The magnificent avenues are flanked by Silver Lime trees (Tilia tomentosa) and Southern Magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora). There are also numerous conifers, such as different cedar trees, (Cedrus deodara, Cedrus libani ssp), Roman pine trees (Pinus pinea), White Pine trees (Pinus halepensis), tall Black Pines (Pinus nigra, Austrian subsp.), Cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens, Cupressus glabra), and a few Monterey cypress trees (Cupressus macrocarpa).
There are also typical Mediterranean species, such as Olive trees (Olea europaea) and Holm Oaks (Quercus ilex), beside other species that are not as well-known, such as Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei and Rhapis excelsa. There is also a Jujube (Red Date) tree (Zizipus jujuba) planted in one of the small squares. This tree is featured in the Barcelona local trees of interest catalogue. Other species of trees in the garden are different varieties of Poplar trees (Populus alba, Populus alba 'Pyramidalis', Populus simonii and Populus X canadensis), Bitter Orange trees (Citrus aurantium), Elm trees (Ulmus minor) and Pepper trees (Schinus molle).
Art and Architecture
The neo-classical royal pavilion, known as the Palacete Albéniz, that is located in the gardens was built in 1929 by local architect Joan Moya. This building was built behind the Palau Nacional (National Palace), and was later refurbished in 1970.
Apart from this building, the Joan Maragall gardens also have 32 sculptures, all from different periods and each one sculpted by a different artist, some of them of very high quality. The sculptures that really stand out amongst the rest are the Noia ajaguda (Girl Lying Down) (1950), by Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (Naked in the pond) (1970), by Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (Stags) (1967), by Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (The water carrier) (1862), by Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (Two newts) (1929), by Josep Viladomat; Sussana al bany (Susana in the bath), by Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (Allegory of the sardana) (1965), by Ernest Maragall; two female nudes, facing each other, called Dona a la cascada (Woman in the waterfall) (1970) and the group of Dones a la cascada (Women in the waterfall) (1970), and Nu femení (Female nude) (1965), by Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), by Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (Girl in a swim cap) (1970), by Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (Woman lying down) (1970), by Enric Monjo, and Dona amb nena (Woman with a girl) and Dona amb nen (Woman with a boy) (1970), by Luisa Granero.
History
This green space originates from the gardens that Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier designed to circulate the Royal Pavilion. This building was built in 1929 inside the enclosure of the International Exhibition (a World's Fair) on Montjuïc. The building was built with two main objectives: to provide Alfonso XIII a space for his large banquets, and to provide a place for him to rest during his visits to the Exhibition.
Once the Exhibition had finished, the idea was to locate the Barcelona Museu de la Música (Museum of Music) there, but this never happened, although the idea determined the name of the small palace and for many years the name of the surrounding gardens. The small palace was named Albéniz, in honour of the great musical artist Isaac Albéniz.
In 1970 when the gardens were expanded, the name was changed to Joan Maragall. The expansion of these gardens was carried out by Joaquim M. Casamor and Barcelona's parks and gardens service. This garden was dedicated to the famous poets of the decade and is one of the three gardens on Montjuïc, along with the Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer garden and the Mossèn Costa i Llobera garden.
Nowadays, the Palacete Albéniz is used as the local residence for the royal family when they come to Barcelona on official visits, for other important guests of the city, and as the location for important municipal banquets and meetings. It is for this reason that the gardens are closed to the public on many occasions.
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Al entrar en estos jardines se tiene la impresión de que son propios de un rey. Y lo son, ya que a principios del siglo XX fueron creados para un rey. Los Jardines de Joan Maragall son elegantísimos, con avenidas arboladas, amplias extensiones de césped, parterres de broderie, fuentes ornamentales, numerosas esculturas al aire libre y un palacete que fue, y aún lo es, residencia real.
Los Jardines de Joan Maragall son un espacio lleno de serenidad, un mundo aparte donde solamente se percibe el canto de los pájaros y el sonido del agua que brota de las fuentes ornamentales. Si se entra por la puerta que hay en la avenida del Estadio, lo primero que encuentra el visitante son grandes parterres de césped donde crecen árboles altísimos. De vez en cuando, ligeros desniveles con bordes de piedra forman una suave bajada por el terreno hasta llegar al corazón de los jardines: el Palacete Albéniz.
Un espacio de la realeza
Este es el calificativo más adecuado para la explanada que se extiende delante de la fachada principal del palacete, flanqueada por dos amplias escalinatas que bajan desde la terraza donde se encuentra la puerta principal del edificio. Una serie de estanques con surtidores y cascadas comparten protagonismo con un largo parterre de broderie.
A ambos lados de este ajardinamiento clásico y afrancesado, dos avenidas de tilos recortados de forma cilíndrica enmarcan la delicadeza de las pequeñas vallas vegetales que dibujan espacios llenos de flores. En el fondo, como punto y final a la perspectiva de los jardines que se puede contemplar desde el palacete, el terreno, cubierto de césped, asciende suavemente y se convierte en la peana de un templete que da cobijo a Susanna al bany (Susana en el baño).
Rincones con personalidad
En todos los jardines, amplios caminos de sablón permiten pasear e ir descubriendo los diferentes espacios en los que se divide, que son bastantes y con mucha personalidad. La mayoría con esculturas que completan su belleza.
De este modo, en la zona situada al lado del Palacio Nacional, que es donde se encuentra la entrada principal de los jardines, una gran avenida de magnolias con un extenso estanque con surtidores en el centro nos conduce hasta los pies de la colina situada delante del palacete. Encima, una plaza semicircular rodeada de cipreses y presidida por Serena es la antesala de un pequeño anfiteatro.
La despedida
A los lados del palacete hay plazoletas recogidas, con fuentes y lavaderos adornados con delfines y putti rechonchos. Detrás del edificio se extiende una amplia pradera a la sombra de enormes pinos. Bajo las copas, unas cuantas mesitas con sillas invitan al visitante a realizar una pausa.
Al final de la pradera, una escalinata que desciende hasta la avenida de Santa Madrona comunica estos jardines con los de Laribal, otra joya de la montaña de Montjuic. Antes de iniciar el descenso, una espléndida vista de Barcelona despide al visitante.
Vegetación
La vegetación de los Jardines de Joan Maragall es, además de rica en especies, un buen ejemplo de la jardinería de principios del siglo XX y un espacio verde con grandes ejemplos arbóreos.
Encontramos tilos (Tilia tomentosa) y magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) flanqueando magníficas avenidas. También podemos disfrutar de grandes ejemplares de coníferas, como el cedro del Himalaya (Cedrus deodara), el cedro del Líbano (Cedrus libani ssp.), el pino piñonero (Pinus pinea), el pino carrasco (Pinus halepensis), el pino laricio (Pinus nigra ssp. austriaca), el ciprés (Cupressus sempervirens), el ciprés de Arizona (Cupressus glabra) y el ciprés de Monterrey (Cupressus macrocarpa).
En este jardín hay especies típicamente mediterráneas como el olivo (Olea europaea) y la encina (Quercus ilex), al lado de otras tan poco frecuentes como la Cycas revoluta, Trachycarpus fortunei y Rhapis excelsa. En una de les plazoletas situada junto al palacete destaca un jinjolero (Zizipus jujuba) que forma parte del Catálogo de Árboles de Interés Local de Barcelona. Otras especies arbóreas presentes en estos jardines son las diferentes variedades de chopos (Populus alba, Populus alba "Pyramidalis", Populus simonii y Populus X canadensis), naranjos (Citrus aurantium), olmos (Ulmus minor) y pimenteros falsos (Shinus molle).
Arte y arquitectura
El antiguo pabellón real situado dentro de los jardines, conocido como Palacete Albéniz y construido en 1929, es un edificio de corte neoclásico obra del arquitecto Joan Moya. Construido detrás del Palacio Nacional, en 1970 se amplió y remodeló.
Además del edificio, en los Jardines de Joan Maragall destacan 32 esculturas de diferentes épocas y autores, algunas de ellas de gran calidad. Destacan Noia ajaguda (Chica acostada) (1950), de Joan Rebull; Nu a l'estany (Desnudo en el estanque) (1970), de Antoni Casamor; Cérvols (Ciervos) (1967), de Frederic Marès; L'aiguadora (La aguadora) (1862), de Louis Sauregeau; Dos tritons (Dos tritones) (1929), de Josep Viladomat; Sussana al bany (Susana en el baño), de Theophile Eugène; Al·legoria de la sardana (Alegoría de la sardana) (1965), de Ernest Maragall; dos desnudos femeninos, uno frente al otro, llamados Dona a la cascada (Mujer en la cascada) (1970), el grupo Dones a la cascada (Mujeres en la cascada) (1970) y Nu femení (Desnudo femenino) (1965), de Eulàlia Fàbregas de Sentmenat; Serena (1970), de Pilar Francesch; Noia amb casquet de bany (Chica con gorro de baño) (1970), de Marifé Tey; Dona ajaguda (Mujer acostada) (1970), de Enric Monjo, y Dona amb nena (Mujer con niña) y Dona amb nen (Mujer con niño)(1970), de Luisa Granero.
Historia
Estos jardines tienen su origen en los que diseñó Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier alrededor del Pabellón Real, que se construyó en Montjuic dentro del recinto de la Exposición Internacional de 1929. El edificio tenía un doble objetivo: que Alfonso XIII dispusiera de un espacio para grandes recepciones y también de un lugar para descansar durante sus visitas a dicha exposición.
Una vez finalizada la exposición, se pensó en ubicar aquí el Museo de Música de la ciudad, un proyecto que no prosperó pero que sí determinó el nombre con el que se conoce el palacete, y durante muchos años también a los jardines que lo rodean: Albéniz, en honor al gran músico Isaac Albéniz.
En 1970, los jardines se ampliaron y pasaron a llamarse de Joan Maragall. Esta ampliación se llevó a cabo por Joaquim M. Casamor y el Servicio de Parques y Jardines de Barcelona. Éste es uno de los tres jardines de Montjuic que, junto con los de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer y Mossèn Costa i Llobera, se dedicaron en esa década a poetas catalanes.
Actualmente, el Palacete Albéniz es la residencia de la Familia Real española en Barcelona cuando vienen en visita oficial, de los invitados ilustres de la ciudad y sede de recepciones municipales de importancia. Es por este motivo que, en determinadas ocasiones, los jardines están cerrados al público.
Shield produces M12 extension cables for several bus systems:
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105 on the way to the Entertainment centre, Hindmarsh on the first day of the network extension in 2010.
© Henk Graalman
Our Daily Challenge ... power.
I went to my daughter's place today to get her to help set up my new laptop. I checked the challenge before I left to come home and noticed this extension cord on the floor near the table' so I did a quick shot, knowing I would be late home.
Control building Volkerak Locks by DP6 architectuurstudio, Willemstad, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands.
website | maasvlakte book | portfolio book
The Volkerak Locks are part of the Delta Works as a result of the Flood Disaster of February 1, 1953.
Date of opening: November 3, 1967 (2 locks): extension with 3rd locks and yaught locks 1977.
The surface of the entire complex are approximately 300 hectares.
The total number of gates is 48.
Service on the Trolley's Bayside extension, serving the Convention Center, Seaport Village, and the south end of the Gaslamp Quarter, began on June 30, 1990.
The Kwiki Locking Extension is offered as an extension to the Kwiki handle. This is required for situations where the damper assembly (manufactured with Kwiki sets) is installed in ductwork that has exterior insulation and allows for the handle to be spaced off the surface over the insulation so the insulation does not have to be cut back at the damper. If the insulation is cut back at the damper handle, the R-value will go down and there is a potential for condensation, etc.
Product comes 100 pieces to a case.
More information about this product can be found at