Casa da Musica, at last!

The long awaited and controversial project known as Casa da Musica (House of Music) has finally opened yesterday, in Porto, with a Lou Reed concert. Here's a New York Times article about it.

Designed by the dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (Pritzker Prize laureate, responsible for other visionary designs such as the Seattle Public Library, the Grand Palais in Lille, the Netherlands Dance Theater and the Nexus Housing Project [what a cool name!] in Japan), it is indeed an extremingly beautiful building. A work of art.

But it is also one of the best examples of the usual portuguese bad management. Initially designed in 1998, Casa da Musica was approved with a 16 million euros budget and destined to be the most powerful, emblematic and symbolic building for the Porto 2001 - European Capital of Culture. The year 2001 passed by without its main symbol and, as I said before, it opened only yesterday after a 4-year delay and with a final budget of... 100 million euros! More than 6 times the initially expected.

Leaving these 'insignificant' details behind, this amazing building is destined to be one of the most important places for cultural events in Portugal. Already scheduled are concerts with the Philarmonia Orchestra, Nancy Sinatra, Joe Lovano and I also heard about a Keith Jarrett gig (although I can't find any confirmation in the Casa da Musica website, maybe it's just a rumour).

If you're coming to Porto, don't forget to visit Casa da Musica.

PS1: I didn't go to the oppening concert, yesterday. However, I would surely be there, if somehow someone had arranged for a lady called Nico to be side by side with Lou Reed, singing things like 'All tomorrow's parties', 'Sweet Jane' or 'Femme Fatale'.

PS2: This note has nothing to do with the previous post, but I just found this new Google logo. It's so cool!