Alicante, a lived in landscape

autor : frédéric bonnet
book : Europan III, resultados
editorial : Europan Spain, Madrid, 1994

Alicante, a lived in landscape

Imaginary route for a resident of the landscape

He lives in a landscape. He's a man, a woman, he's ten years old, or else seventy three. He's single, or perhaps married. Does he work ?: executive, employee, retired or schoolboy. He's all this at once, but nevertheless he's one of a kind. New Being in a new world ? Indeed. But our first challenge might be trying to recognize this elusive "He", who exists as a fellow that cannot be grasped by statistics.

A lived-in landscape, imaginary
He lives in a landscape of make-believes. There he recognizes a poetical order for each ritual he may achieve. He stops on a belvedere, settles down in an enclosure, in a cave, goes through a valley or through a street, sits down against the rock in the shadow, or else facing the sky and the sea. These places have got no age, they receive each moment of existance, the "states of living-in" of our figure.

A lived-in landscape, Idea of nature
He looks for nature. The idea of nature: neither the wild forest nor the rough and virgin steppe, but their tarned fragments. There he meets again what seems to be exiting for ever, out of himself: the path of the sun, the colours of the sky, the mass of the telluric shelft of the mountain, the water rushing down the slope, the shadows of the leaves, flowers in february, water springs in july.

A lived-in landscape, presence of the distances
He yearns for the horizon. The landscape he's living in retales to him the lights of faraway. He's spanish, but does it mean Catalan, Galician or Andalou ? His lanscape he's in Alicante, but it holds as well, crouched, loose stones of the Sierra, coolness of north or moorish aqueduct. Standing on the rock of Benacantil, he finds there, sometimes, sources of travels.

A lived-in landscape, on large duration
He lives here, today. But he guesses the ages of the city, the patient work of time. The lived-in landscape lives on a very large duration, and he quite knows that himself, passing through his time, will play his part in this neverending genesis. He meets in this landscape the recollection of antique wars. But he also imagines it as a litthe child, when one quite knows that he shall change on.

A lived-in landscape, rituals
He's inside. There's the kitchen, the sleeping room and the bathroom. He's acquainted with what these spaces are, the daytime when they are used, and what he can do within each of them. However this is not enough for him. His deeds are some kind of ritual... Lying down, he doesn't only sleep. He dreams, he reads, he listens. In a corner, in the center of a vast room, on the floor, or over there, on a terrace ? He wakes up as well, opens the eyes. What does he whatch then ? Is there any light, any music or words ? Does he see the sky, or the shadow ? Whenever he stands up, what is he going to look for ? Quietness, crowd in the streets, freshness or scorcher ? This is what he knows the best: all these places where plaisure or repose rise from his gesture. He craves there clearness or penumbra, a space shut as a cloister, open as a deck, where he would be remote as in a cave, or else called to as in a square. He engraves in this landscape his singular rituals. He doesn't wish for any principles, any all-transparent, heavy or light lodging. His neightbour, the child from the front door or the old man downstairs shall prefer, at lunch time, the heatness of a terrace, the shadows in the enclosure, recess of a window or the coolness of a pergola. Himself, according to the day of spring or winter, will sit facing the street, or in the semi-darkness of the walls. He's got his awn habits, indeed, but they are manifold, changeable, almost elusive. And he looks at every moment the series of the places of his landscape, that he distinguishes as familiar. He lives in as a poet.

A lived-in landscape, within the city
He goes out. This is not exactly the same, nevertheless he wanders in the same landscape. Sure, he knows that ther, on the square, he will never have a shower. But each of the places outside his flat are also ritual ones. He doesn't know what "transition" means: the street where he's walking, running or stopping, the yard he's passing through, the garden where he's chattering, the terrace where he's playing, he lives in there as well. Here he rediscovers light and shadow, labyrinth and enclosure, the rock, stone and leaves. Of course he notices that his building is a bit diffrenet than the others. Scarecely newer, for instance, but how will it look in some years ? There's here concrete where there was cement plaster, stone now and then took place of ceramics and the leaves of date palms sread-out on the sky where the wrought iron of the flimsy balconies used to show up. However, the scale is quite the same as it was, rythms are alike, gardens everywhere seem to merge into the walls and their lines join along the streets. An architecture has discreetly replaced of an other, landscape is living. He lives in it, but only distinguishes here a more familiar part of the same city, spread from the ficus-trees of the piers up to the cathedral, from the boulevards up to the fortifications of the castle.

A lived-in landscape, on its territorry
He moves away. He leaves the "street of shadows" and the wooden floor of the four palm gardens, leaves the pergola facing the sea, the caves and the wall leaned against the slope. He climbs the mountain, towards the park. He follows the path of the valley, stairs have been dressed with rose laurels. He passes alongside a garden of stones and white asfodelus, where pours the rain water, as sometimes somewhere in Majorca. Passed bellow the Santa Cruz Hermitage, he arrives onto the hill. Here grows henceforth a silvery olive wood. At times, he goes through a garden of rock, raised stones as if holding the sparce downpours. On the shelf, a hollow garden, rectangular and set with Alep pines, shelters his rest. He keeps on climbing, from the clear shadows of olive trees up to the torrid sun, till he reaches the castel. Everywhere, from the very heart of his lodging up to the hill, gardens and walls remind him that he lives in the same territory. There would be much more marks, that he perhaps don't discern yet: the building of the edifice, contemporary, using the avaible technics in this place at this time. From the Plaça del Carmen up to the escarpements, everything points out his going through the world of Alicante. Neither the style, nor the form of things discloses this to him, but their very essence, deep and almost timeless. Anyway this world is not shut. The landscape he lives in opens his imaginary towards other tales; the sea remains the sea in Ibiza, it's perhaps raining in Tanger or Istanbul, Palm trees are bending there under the Mistral, and further on on the squalls of Monsoon. He all the best distinguishes here the shelf and the sky of Alicante as its gaze escapes, miles away.

A lived-in landscape, in a continuous time
He's now looking at the city from above. Chaotic rooves of the antique town, then towers, large avenues. New city? He quite guesses that into the more recent blocks slips the thread of History, the passages, the colours of the Casco Antiguo. He's aware that all that has not finished yet, that other breaches, perhaps even other towers will be done. And when he drops his gaze on the surroundings of Plaça del Carmen, he barely notices his tiny landscape, different and similar at once, understanding that he may also see the impending metamorphosis of the neighbourhood's houses. Old city and modern city join into the same body, the seem to be a whole. Their layout will change, but all what he's seen during his walk will remain: rock, slope, sun, shadow and light, narratives of relatives, palm leaves, rest, path, squares and gardens. This town gets new at each moment, nevertheless terribly constant. Besides, is he really the new being of a new era ? Without any doubt, he doesn't read the same books, he doesn't work nor have fun in the same places, at the same hour. His family is no longer alike his parents', daytime rythm is different, he could almost work at home. But he's not dupe : the apparent newness hardly hides the patient permanence of his cultures. So the landscape he's living in goes its way... The rituals sheltered by his singular places vary quite few: according to the individual - he ? his child ?- or depending on the time - is it summer, is it dusk ?, and in spite of all, these rituals remain. He listens sometimes. The landscape tells him the history of time: the important is not the starting point of all, nor what follows. The most important is what vanishes and now and then reappears, and what persists, as a fondation. There is architecture. The pleasure of ephemera, he undertakes it.