Vancouver’s Stanley Park and Alhambra de Granada – Spain

“I believe there are many man-made places where this balance between matter, time and nature is achieved. Some make part of our collective understanding of what a ‘good architectural space’ is, whereas others are more subjective and respond to personal views of the world. For example, the Alhambra de Granada in Spain has this atemporal beauty where all your senses are stimulated by the perfect integration of natural elements and construction materials. There is also some of that atemporal quality in old religious spaces, for example the Catholic Church of Santa Maria del Naranco in Oviedo (Spain) is one favourite of mine. But walking in Vancouver’s Stanley Park can produce a similar sense of wellbeing and spiritual lifting or just sitting in a well-designed porch observing a lake, a sunset, a forest…

More recent buildings that in my opinion achieve this beautiful balance would be the Therme Vals by Peter Zumthor (Switzerland) or the Universidad Adolfo Ibanez by Jose Cruz Ovalle (Chile).” (Booklet Positive Lived Experiences of Quality in the Built Environment 2023, p.264).

Alhambra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra

Santa Maria del Naranco: https://www.turismoasturias.es/descubre/cultura/prerromanico/santa-maria-del-naranco

Stanley Park: https://www.insidevancouver.ca/2018/02/27/if-these-stumps-could-talk-exploring-stanley-parks-rain-forest/

Thermes of Vals: https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/building/thermas-vals/

Universidad Adolfo Ibanez: http://compo3t.blogspot.com/2014/12/universidad-adolfo-ibanez-jose-cruz.html