NPR: In the boom years, Spain spent billions on big infrastructure projects — high-speed railways, roads and gleaming structures like the Niemeyer Center for the arts in Aviles, in the country's north.
Opened in March this year, the dazzling museum has hosted sold-out performances by Kevin Spacey and Woody Allen. But it's slated to close on Dec. 15, after barely nine months of operation, because of regional budget cuts.
And the fate of the Niemeyer could be an omen of what could happen across Spain, as conservative politicians cut funding for the arts and other big public projects become white elephants littering the landscape.
1 comment:
Interesting to see the parallels between Spain's money problems and our own. "The arts [in Spain] are always in danger. It's the first thing any public budget will cut" - sounds exactly like what we've been fearing for in the United states as well. It's a shame that something so beneficial to the public could be taken away. The opening of the Niemeyer Center was fantastic to the local residents because of all the tourism it created, and to loose that seems counter-intuitive if the government is having financial troubles.
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