The fame in Spain

By Clive Irving

updated 1:26 a.m. ET Jan. 21, 2008

You can learn a lot about Spanish history by looking at a plate of paella. First, consider the large bowl it's often served in, shallow and a bit wok-like, as well as the larger one it's cooked in — both are derived from a Roman utensil. (The very word paella is said to come from patella, Latin for "pan.") Then there's the rice, which came to Spain in the eighth century, imported by the Moors, who planted it in the wetlands at the edge of the freshwater Albufera lagoon, south of the port of Valencia. The orangy stain on the rice comes from saffron, which the Arabs found in Persia and began cultivating in Spain in the tenth century. And finally, there are the olive oil and peppers, both native to the Iberian Peninsula, and the meat — chicken and/or rabbit — cheap and local, but elevated to succulence by the chemistry of the pan.

I tend to do a lot of reflecting with the help of gastric juices (after all, what is the point of travel if you don't salivate over the local dishes?), and this, the paella insight, came as I was enjoying a takeaway street version of the dish, lowly but adequate, from a popular joint next to the Central Market in Valencia. Paella lore is as riven with disputes about ingredients and cooking method as it is ancient, but one thing is sure: Valencia was where the concoction evolved.

There is little argument, either, that the Central Market has one of the most astonishing displays of fresh produce ever seen, more than 700 stalls selling everything from just-picked wild strawberries to some very weird specimens of marine life. However, distracted as I was by the scents and sights, it was the building itself that truly delighted. It is an exultant flourish of the vaulting cast-iron frame and glass artistry that began with Victorian railway stations, though here given an added dash of Spanish ceramics and tilework. It was the mid-nineteenth-century English architects who discovered that by marrying iron frames with glazing, they were able to take the bulk out of big public buildings, to strip them down, and — vitally — to allow light to bathe the interiors. The Central Market in Valencia, which opened in 1928, is a marvelous blend of design and purpose in the cause of the kind of daily domestic gastronomy that most of us can only dream of.

As it happens, the building's mélange of Roman, Moorish, and Iberian cultural notes, not to mention an avid personal regard for the pleasures of the kitchen, both came up in conversation with Richard Rogers, last year's winner of the Pritzker, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, when we discussed his addition to the Spanish landscape, Madrid's Barajas International Airport. I was on a quest to discover why Spain has become a magnet for architects — at least eight Pritzker winners are currently working on projects there. I wondered if Rogers could help explain this phenomenon.

"In terms of culture, Spain is the most interesting country in Europe at the moment," he said, sipping an espresso as dense as tar as we talked in his London offices, which sit on the banks of the Thames. "The craftsmanship is as good as the best anywhere."

From the Pompidou Center in Paris to the Lloyds Building in London, there's always been a strong utopian theme in Rogers's public buildings, a fresh wind of openness and transparency. And like many of us, he felt that airports had become places to loathe rather than love, and a suitable target for vigorous deconstruction. At Barajas he got the chance to do just that.

To use a British term of visceral approbation, I was gob-smacked when I flew in from London. In a sense, Barajas is already airborne. It sits on a plateau 2,000 feet above sea level, and this altitude, along with the pale hills that surround the airport, produces a light of sharp brilliance.

Terminal 4, the core of Barajas, is more than 5 million square feet in area. There are three levels aboveground and three below. Rogers wanted daylight from the roof to flood the top three floors. He did this by creating what he calls canyons — uninterrupted breaks in the structure from roof to ground level. Across the canyons, bridges connect the areas used for check-in, security, and boarding. "I wanted to get the spirit of travel back, the romance of those wonderful, lofty railway stations where you would set off for places like Istanbul," Rogers told me. "That was part of the concept of a large roof — most of all, we wanted to get the light in."

What made the most impact, though, as I moved happily through this vastness, was the novelty of the roof itself, which undulates like an arrested wave and is finished with planks of bamboo. Few people know, however, that the bamboo nearly had to be abandoned. Trial samples failed fireproofing tests. Only when a German fabricator found a way to laminate bamboo like plywood, using a flame-suppressing glue, was it cleared for use. Now, light filters between the bamboo planks and is focused through large portholes, suffusing everything in the space with a sort of weightlessness.

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