August Extravaganza

Alright, it's been a very long time since I wrote, which means there's a whole lot to relate!  Looking back, August was a non-stop series of events, visits, festivals and new experiences.  I would love to spend a whole entry on each of these, but I'm afraid I'd never get through them that ways, so instead you're gonna get a nice short intro to each and if you want to know more, well you'll just have to ask!

The first major event was an international conference being hosted by my office, urbam, at EAFIT university.  The theme of the conference was "Urban Environments" and drew some very big name speakers who discussed everything from teaching people in Vietnam how to build stronger houses to visionary ways to re-imagine cities of the future.  If you think this stuff might be of interest, you can check out the presentation slides here.

Needless to say, hosting a conference took a fair bit of time an energy, but was thoroughly rewarding.  However, in addition to hosting the conference, two of the invitees were also going to be starting a new project with myself and 3 other architects here in Medellin to research and propose solutions to the issue of informal construction in high risk zones along the mountainous borders of the city.  As such, we spent a few very long days hashing out the details of the project as well as going on various site visits.  In addition, their visit fell over a weekend, so there was also some less structured hosting to be done.  Luckily, the same weekend happened to be the beginning of Medellin's famous flower festival, so the whole city was teeming with activity and pretty much everywhere we went there was something to see or do.  That said, we didn't want to limit our guests experience to just the city, so we also took an excursion to Peñol and Guatape to show off the stunning countryside that surrounds us.

This time, rather than attempting to scale the bare rock of Peñol, we took the stairs.  All 600 or more of them!  Which was particularly interesting considering the way they're rather precariously stacked into the cleft of the rock, but made for some very interesting spaces on the way up and down.

 However, whereas the view down was rather precarious....

The view out was really quite stunning!

 Once we'd had our fill of the spectacular view and sore calves, we made our way down the hill to the city of Guatape.  This place is a gleaming little jewel of a town situated on the edge of a large lake with every house painted an array of bright colors.  In addition to the somewhat common detailing of ballestrades and trim, this particular place is known for a tradition of adding 'zocolo's to the base of every building.  These images are iconic little elements that run along the base of nearly all the buildings, sometimes denoting the wares of the shop behind and other times simply adding variety to the street scape.

Once we'd had our fill of pretty countryside, the afternoon rains convinced us it was time to head home.  Unfortunately, the traffic coming back into town delayed us over an hour at a near standstill, but we still made it back in time for "Noche Negra," a concert celebrating the African rhythms of the coastal inhabitants of Colombia.  This was a particularly fun event, not just because the music was awesome, and we ran into my housemates in the crowd, but because we got to see one of the many well designed public spaces of Medellin transformed into an outdoor concert complete with tiered levels to stand on and a backdrop, all with no additions to the space beyond that of the stage.  All in all quite a nice sight to see and a great end to a long and exciting day.

The following week consisted of a whole lot of work while we organized to get our new project up and running, but the flower festival continued all week with the final events the following weekend.  On Saturday there was a parade of antique cars, which was quite a scene and lots of fun to meander through.

Even if a few cars needed a little help from their friends...

And of course there were a few unofficial additions to the event...

All in all, quite the scene to behold and lots of enjoyment for the morning, but the day was still young!  After walking half way across town (and stumbling upon the other climbing gym), we hopped a cab over to Parque Bolivar where the largest artisan market of the year was in full swing.

We wandered about for several hours marveling over the beautifully hand crafted objects of all shapes and sizes, spending way more money than we should have, but not nearly as much as I would have liked to given all the gorgeous works available for purchase.

The next day was the crowning moment of the festival, the parade of "silletas."  These are the traditional flower arrangements for which the festival is held.  Apparently the original festival included a parade all the way from Santa Elena up in the mountains, down into the city, which is really quite amazing considering the size and weight of the displays these people carry!

We'll get to that another day....