Palacio de Las Artes Reina Sofía
Curved white opera house shaped like a peeling shell, rising from a riverbed drowned by flood.
The guide to Palau de les Arts in Valencia begins with the river that used to run beneath your feet, the Turia, which flooded catastrophically one night in October 1957, killing eighty-one people and pushing the city to reroute the water outside town. It follows the drained, empty channel through decades of neglect until the 1990s, when Valencia handed the site to architect Santiago Calatrava to build an opera house on the old riverbed. It also traces the building's rocky opening years, including a stage collapse and a flood that reached its halls. Stand by the water Calatrava added on purpose, and look up at the shell-like panels overhead.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.