Terracotta Plan

Let there be light!

Joaquin Sorolla at Bellas Artes

Valencia’s grand, blue-domed Bellas Artes museum is already well-known for its collection of beautiful paintings by Joaquin Sorolla, the Valencian son who so magically captured the city’s light and everyday life at the turn of the 20th Century.

It’s a landmark year for the so-called ‘Master of light’ with 2023 marking the 100th anniversary of his death.

To mark the occasion, a new temporary exhibition has just opened at Bellas Artes to explore his earlier works.

Entitled Origins, it features a big range of canvases, including his 1883 painting The Slave and the Dove, created when he was just 20 years old and considered the first to showcase his ability to capture light.

The exhibition, in partnership with the Sorolla Museum in Madrid, will feature other works never before displayed in Valencia, tracing his career from early drawings to his first seascapes and including photos and watercolours, too.

It will run until June 11 and is just one of the ways the city is marking the centenary of Sorolla’s death.

Squid Game escape

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Stay in architect Bofill’s cult work of art in Calpe

He was famous for his geometric buildings and the Mediterranean and Arabic styles that inspired his work. Now architect Ricardo Bofill - whose iconic designs have been compared to the backdrops of hit Netflix series

The Squid Game - is being celebrated this year in the colourful resort of Calpe.

The Alicante hotspot had declared 2023 its ‘Year of Bofill’, just before he died in early 2022, but the celebrations are still going ahead.

Bofill’s most famous work in Calpe is the 1972 apartment complex ‘The Red Wall’, which perches on the cliff to the southern end of the Bay of Calpe, looking across to the striking Penyal d’Ifac rock.

Said to have been inspired by the design of a North African kasbah, all terraces, patios and hidden walkways, it is actually just one of three quirky buildings that make up the coastal Manzanera urbanisation designed by Bofill.

The forest-green Xanadu building looks like a teetering pile of houses on top of each other right on the coast and is home to 18 modern apartments while the sleek Amphitheatre complex, all creamy exteriors set around a red-tiled pool, is home to another 27 luxury homes.

From April to the end of September, Calpe will offer weekly guided tours of the city’s Bofill architecture, which is normally closed to the public. Email infocultura@ajcalp.es for more details. Or you could always book a stay in one of the apartments within the urbanisation. Apartments in The Red Wall are available on Booking and Airbnb from €95 a night.