BARCELONA

"Barcelona

21st May. 2004

Now I know that God exists. And he is as flesh and blood as I am…"

A few years back, before discarding it as garbage, I was leafing through an old tattered journal and I found this dramatic entry, beside a series of sketches, amidst lots of shorthand notes. I had made them sitting on the bench at the base of the great Montjuic Tower in Barcelona, Spain.

I couldn't help a smile breaking on my lips as I remembered the joke...

I am still an admirer of the endearing Professor Trilokeshwar Sanku and his amazing adventures around the world. At that age, I emulated the journal entry style, typical to the wise professor, as an attempt to express my awe in a language borrowed from the literature of another great master, 'Manik-babu' (the great Satyajit Ray). But of course, the joke does fall apart to those who have never devoured Prof. Sanku's diaries. So here am I, writing a blog about it, for both the initiated and the uninitiated.

It was 2004; I was completing my postgraduate studies in Glasgow, Scotland. As a class, the 8 of us decided to go for an 'after the semester' trip to Spain- to the city of Barcelona.

A tiny flashback: 1997, Tumkur, Karnataka…

A very good friend of those days, the college 'central library', introduced me to the structures designed by a man, whose name has a fluid rhythm just like his dynamic structures- Mr. Santiago Calatrava. Throughout my undergraduate studies, whenever a design solution for any assignment allowed for a steel structure, I had emulated the Master in order to learn. Montjuic or the Barcelona telecommunication tower is one such awe-inspiring project.

Back again in 2004. I thought I knew the structure, with all the details I had collected in my head, over the years, through books, journals, and other documentation, just like any enthusiastic architecture student. But when I saw it, I understood the difference between 'knowing it' and 'experiencing it'.

All through the long trek along the winding road of Montjuic Hill, it was hard for me to contain my excitement. My classmates were having a laugh! Jokes like "Roney" (my pet name for everyone who knew me in Scotland as it was easy to call), is entering haloed grounds" came from them. Right after a turn, there she was: a tower elegantly poised as a sculptural form of an athlete, bending and holding the torch of the great game, up. Montjuic tower is balanced on a single point on a reinforced concrete circular base that is clad in stone, and houses the telecommunication facilities of the site. The main shaft of the tower is an inclined one, designed to imitate the bending form of the 'Athlete'. This shaft transmogrified into a hook that holds a vertical element, a part of the telecommunication relay systems. I remember kneeling down in the plaza below, staring up in amazement to see that element suspended in the middle of the hook as if: floating!

We climbed the top of the base and experienced another wonder. The strong morning sun was using the slanted shaft to cast its shadow on the sun-dial below. The tower is strategically placed as the crown of Montjuic hill and becomes visible as a strong icon from almost everywhere down in the city.

I remember making that journal entry sitting at the foot of one of the sundial marker stands, contemplating what an incredible symbol this structure was: how the mind of a man could create that symbol for an entire country to pay homage to one of the greatest traditions in the history of mankind- the Olympic Games.

And as I sat there in shade, absorbing every moment of that experience, making notes and sketches, learning and unlearning, I wrote those lines as my homage to that great man, that great human mind.