City of Arts and Sciences

Santiago Calatrava's complex on the old riverbed: white concrete and broken-tile shells set in shallow blue pools, on a scale that makes people very small. There is nothing else like it in the country and it photographs unlike anywhere else in this catalogue.

The pools are the reason to come. Everything reflects, so a low camera position gives you the structure twice, and on a still morning the water is a mirror. The Hemisfèric — the eye-shaped building — and the covered walkways of the Umbracle give you shade and repeating arches when the open plaza is too bright.

White concrete in full Valencian sun is genuinely hard: it blows out and it throws light back up into faces. Early morning and the last hour are not a preference here, they are the working hours.