While working on this book about learning music, I’ve been asking questions like:

• What do we need in order to learn a piece of music? To share it?
• How do we tell that we’ve learned something? When does “know” mean “know”?
• How do we parse information from the past, and to what extent is that information actionable in the present?

I’ve become more convinced that one necessary skill in learning is to be excited by and captivated by details while being able to connect those details to larger cultural ideas around us. I’ve been thinking details and contexts while categorizing and reflecting on my experiences this summer. My goal was to visit old things, newer old things, organized old things.

My newest collection of details. It’s not a map, but a book about a map, the Plano de Teixeira. A classic projection of Madrid from 1656, a print of which I had gifted to him many years ago. Plano stands out for its detail (wonderful façades) as well as its timeliness—created about a century after Madrid became the Spanish capital, it’s a study in urban development, decay, and structure.

​Link to hi-res version​

An original engraving and the copper plates used to make it are housed at the Museo de Historia de Madrid, possibly my favorite museum in Madrid: it’s filled with maps. Even the historical paintings are ersatz maps, depicting locations and events in Madrid’s fascinating development. The Teixeira map is also basis for the museum’s greatest piece, a scale model of the city.

(By the way, The City of Madrid has put together an impressive collection of historical maps, each of which depicts a rapidly and honestly changing metropolis.)

While Cervantes passed away before the Plano de Teixeira, this interactive map is a platform through which to explore locations important in 17th century Madrid.​

I remember a class where geographers adjusted the projections of historical maps onto GPS data, allowing us to track the development of city blocks, businesses, and other urban data over hundreds of years. I was struck at the time by how the newer GPS-based maps seemed to have their own bias. At least the 16th century map of Antwerp emblazoned with a crest of a cherub firing an arrow at a sea monster isn’t hiding its proclivities.

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Continuing my summer theme of cryptic shards and isolated fragments, I was overwhelmed by the Musei Capitolini in Rome, which are seemingly 100% fragments. Unlike the Palazzo Massimo, the Capitolini include detritus from around the City, arranged by type, not unlike a trendy outdoor antique store. Amidst the 4 original “donations” from the Papacy (who wouldn’t want a giant head and a boy investigating a shard in his foot?), I enjoyed the section featuring Roman writing, highlighting everything from gravestones to Roman resumes to mile markers to word games.

Context

In June I wrote that “I believe fragments in context are more powerful than complete works out of context.” This was the case at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Despite my proclivity towards modern art (part of my reason for visiting Barcelona was Moderismo and Miró), the real draw here is the Romanesque. In response to the crumbling condition of many Catalonian romanesque churches and the pillaging of major works of art by collectors operating on behalf of American art museums, these painted murals and retablos were re-repatriated to Barcelona and installed in interior museum spaces designed to model exactly their original location.

In most museums, we come into contact with Medieval paintings, retablos, statues, and artifacts as art, detached from their original context and located within a space designed to showcase them as aesthetic objects. Here, it was stunning to see these works in a space with perspective, depth, texture. Most notably, these are works designed to be looked up to, not into. The perspective shifts from standing below these works bestows a measure of awe. Negative space was as powerful as the murals themselves, the absence a powerful focusing tool.

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Later, I walked down from Montjuïc, passing two temporally linked but geographically disjunct fragments. Poble Espanyol, a “model” Spanish village built for the 1929 World Exposition in Barcelona, now serving as a cultural center and tourist trap. It’s got a “It’s a Small World” feeling to it, a mix of Old Tucson, Colonial Williamsburg, and The Good Place. Here was an example of non-original fragments in non-original locations.

Completing my unasked-for quadrant of original piece/original location, I passed Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich’s German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition. Mies sets the building as a continuous line, mobilizing marble and travertine to create a space which feels both rigorously enclosed—its aggressive ceiling feels low, and visitors step down into the space—and powerfully open. Unadorned save for Kolbe’s statue “Dawn” in a reflecting pool, Mies’ pavilion was to me a parallel to Barragan’s Cuadra San Cristóbal, a residence with a tremendously overachieving horse stable in Los Clubes northeast of Mexico City. As in the museum’s Romanesque recreations, the negative space focus the mind and eyes.

More Representations

B. Later, while reading more about the churches in question (and out of guilt for missing 80% of the museum), I was taken with their website UI…

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A. Speaking of UI, anyone who has ever tried to enter a year a faculty activity online or set up a Canvas site knows how important user interface can and should be. Here’s a fun demonstration.​

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