BARCELONA, SPAIN (1989)
No longer believing that a modern theme park should be restricted to themes of adolescent nostalgia and childhood cartoons, Peter Gabriel, together with Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson, conceived of a new, personal theme park for the modern age emphasizing contemporary wisdom, technology and visual delight. A great mountain plateau of stone and verdant landscape rises against the surrounding urban fabric. At the top, a glass pyramid and revolving wheel stand sentinel as symbols of innovation and the promise of technology. Visitors enter a tunnel a sensory transition space in the mountain, leaving the familiar world behind. Light beckons from the center of a large outdoor crater where two vaporous tornadoes form a gateway to the undiscovered world. A stream of water Living River begins at the top of the crater and circles the sloping sides until it reaches a green sea. Along the way, ever changing exhibits and chambers of exploration are open to view. In this unknown realm of a garden paradise, each image denies a pre-conception and evokes the existence of a new, real world.
