The Venus Project in Valencia, Spain
Valencia, Spain was an amazing stop. There was a large group of people that came from all over Spain and surrounding countries to attend the lecture. But this seems to be the pattern at each stop in Europe; People often travel long distances to attend the presentations.
There is always a diverse group of people within each chapter who have many different skills, so a lot gets done. This was particularly useful in Spain. Many of the members stayed up for three nights in a row before the lecture putting together our Spanish translation of Jacque’s book “The Best That Money Can’t Buy”, which they printed, then spiral bound themselves. They also took our video that we show at each lecture and did a voice over in Spanish, then added music of their own creation. After so many nights up they had to redo an audio section because they picked up someone who had fallen asleep and was snoring in the background! Their hard work paid off as they produced a wonderful piece.
The lecture was sold out ahead of time with standing room only. It felt like a success, and like each lecture people stayed engaged throughout, and afterwards.
One dedicated member of The Zeitgeist Movement who helped with the lecture was the head of the police department in an area of Spain. His stories were very interesting, and his approaches were compassionate.
We took some time to do a little sightseeing of a complex designed by two of Jacque’s and my favorite architects, Santiago Calatrava and the late Felix Candela. The City of Arts and Sciences is a large-scale urban recreation center for culture and science, which also incorporates L’Oceanogràfic, an underwater city designed by Candela. Their work was very extravagant, and finished at a tremendously overrun cost, but the large complex was a refreshing divergence from all the other cities we have been visiting. They explored new methods in design with their inspirational architecture.
Jacque’s approach is different and is what we call social architecture. Architecture today is mostly monuments to the architect’s ego. Within a Resource Based Economy design criteria would support the direction and aims of this new system, which is to produce abundance as quickly as possible, and achieve as high a standard of living as possible, for everyone. With this in mind, ostentatious waste just to impress, and therefore the waste of resources, would be offensive, and impossible. Instead, one would consider expending a minimum of materials for maximum convenience, serving the needs of people by using the efficient and economic use of resources. Cities would require a minimum of maintenance, with energy efficient planning that is capable of undergoing constant modification with new advances. It would not be a static environment but instead stimulating and ever evolving. The main concern is for the well being of people, and making the surroundings pleasant and convenient to meet the need of the occupants. The cities would be immersed in as natural environments as possible where one would feel like the city is an extension of the natural surrounding.
People have been asking if this traveling on the World Lecture Tour is difficult, but the most difficult part about it is saying good-bye to so many extraordinary people we establish a close relationship with at each stop. This was certainly the case in Spain as well.
Roxanne Meadows
www.thevenusproject.com
