Blinded Me With Science

It has indeed been museum month on the blog. To bring August to a close, there is more. This time it concerns the projected science and technology museum that is due to rise from if not the ashes then the ashen soil of what was the old power station by the port in Alcúdia. This is the science and technology museum about which there was all manner of hullabaloo some two years ago: went out to tender, the likes of Lord Rogers pitched for the gig as architect, a firm in Barcelona got it, the museum was going to be a great advance for tourism in the north, all the usual spin. When the actual project was presented and heralded as a "great icon in the north of the island" (reported on 23 October 2008, (Car) Parklife), it was observed that the funding was not actually in place. By coincidence, on 23 October I pointed out that 23 million euros were needed. They still are. And these still missing millions are but part of the problem. Various interested parties, not least Gesa, which still owns the installations, and the ports authority, have raised objections to aspects of the project. They have arisen only some ten months after the project was presented; only ten months. It may have taken this time but perhaps they needed it in order to realise that there are aspects of the project that no-one had recognised, such as what to do with deposits of gas that Gesa, quite rightly, would not like to be seen "given off". There is also the not small matter of an electrical substation on the site which would need to be re-sited.

The good news is that all parties are wanting to work to find an agreement and solution. The less good news is quite why some of this was not taken into account in the first place. Putting the project back on the drawing-board will probably mean more money for the architects to re-draw it and of course more time; more money for the architects from what pot exactly? There is no obvious time frame for the project to start or indeed to finish; you wouldn't expect there to be so given that there is no money for it, which there isn't. The bigger question, therefore, surrounds whether it will ever start, owing to that funding requirement. While the museum may indeed become "iconic", assuming there is ever something physical that could be seen as an icon, quite what would make it so is also not clear. And one returns, inevitably, to the key question. What is the point of it? It may indeed yet be something rather grand and splendid that will attract extra tourists, but the key surely lies in that word "extra".

Major tourist attractions on Mallorca are mostly to be found in the south. It is to the south that many excursions, from the north, go. Would there be excursions in reverse, i.e. from south to north? It is this sort of question that needs to be asked of the project, and an answer offered, and one can only begin to arrive at such an answer if one knows exactly what is intended. Museums are all well and good, but it would have to be something special to shake tourists from their southern sloth (and from that in other parts of the island as well as locally) to make the Alcúdia project truly worthwhile and truly iconic. Perhaps it will be. But the portents are not necessarily favourable, and nor is the fact that some fairly basic oversights appear to have been made.

When this project was first announced in May 2007 (23 May in fact; always 23), I made the rather obviously flippant reference to the Millennium Dome, given Lord Rogers' appearance on the list of those up for it. But the experience of that building may not be wholly without parallel. One feels that the "iconic" aspect of this new museum would lie in its appearance, i.e. its architectural magnificence - maybe. One would feel rather more comfortable if the project was more bottom-up, as in what it will be and what it will include. The building itself seems to take precedence. That is not unimportant. Most certainly it is not, nor would be its visual harmony on the bay of Alcúdia nor its potentially emblematic statement. But as important, if not more so, is what they would actually do with it.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Whispers, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySaHZZhSwXE. Today's title - who was this and which scientist appeared on the record?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)


Index for August 2009
All-inclusives - 28 August 2009, 29 August 2009
August, lazy in - 8 August 2009, 24 August 2009
Beata 2009 - 30 August 2009
Bellevue hotel, Alcúdia - 16 August 2009, 28 August 2009, 29 August 2009
Calle Bot, Puerto Pollensa - 15 August 2009
Can Picafort live ducks - 17 August 2009
Car-hire shortage - 17 August 2009, 20 August 2009
Catalan radical groups - 3 August 2009
Cooperativa Agricola Murense, Muro - 18 August 2009
Disco excursion, Can Picafort - 12 August 2009
Ethnology museum, Muro - 14 August 2009
Excursions, reduction in bookings - 4 August 2009
Fiestas - 30 August 2009
Fires - 26 August 2009
Glosada - 30 August 2009
Golf tourism - 13 August 2009
History in Muro, farming - 18 August 2009
Hotels closing in September? - 21 August 2009
Inca footwear museum - 7 August 2009, 9 August 2009
Internet review sites - 16 August 2009, 28 August 2009
Jellyfish and weever fish - 19 August 2009
Kroxan café, Puerto Alcúdia - 13 August 2009
La Gola park, Puerto Pollensa - 9 August 2009
La Residencia, Deía - 11 August 2009
La Villa restaurant - 6 August 2009
Mallorca expensive? - 5 August 2009, 17 August 2009, 19 August 2009, 20 August 2009, 21 August 2009, 22 August 2009
Palma bombs - 9 August 2009, 11 August 2009, 12 August 2009
Palmanova bombing - 1 August 2009, 2 August 2009, 3 August 2009, 4 August 2009, 5 August 2009, 6 August 2009
Pickpocketing - 13 August 2009
Pollentia museum, Alcúdia - 9 August 2009
Prices - 5 August 2009, 17 August 2009, 19 August 2009, 20 August 2009, 21 August 2009, 22 August 2009, 30 August 2009
Puerto Pollensa marina security - 10 August 2009
Rafael Nadal tourism promotion - 15 August 2009
Real Mallorca under new ownership - 10 August 2009
Road humps, Puerto Pollensa - 7 August 2009
Sa Pobla-Alcúdia railway - 27 August 2009
Science and technology museum, Alcúdia - 31 August 2009
Temperatures and weather - 26 August 2009
Tourist complaints - 21 August 2009
Tourist satisfaction and expectations - 16 August 2009
Violence, tourist - 25 August 2009
Windsurfing - 9 August 2009