White Elephant
Ah, the boom years. The years in which everything was being paved over with concrete. The years in which buildings appeared like magic mushrooms. The years in which land no one had previously wanted was sold for millions. The years fortunes were made. The years for which we are still paying. In 1999, then-regional president Manuel Fraga got jealous of Bilbao's new Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry and Valencia's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences) by Santiago Calatrava. They were flashy new buildings that brought attention and visitors. Fraga (who had been Minister of Tourism under Franco and then recycled himself after the Transition to be democratically elected president of his native Galicia) wanted to leave behind such a legacy that he would be remembered forever. No, we won't be forgetting him any time soon. Or the treasury he emptied to ensure his remembrance. He thought up a scheme to be built on Monte Gaiás, just outside and overlooki...