m̌ ḫ's photos

On weekends, Avenida Paulista also becomes a stage for protests and activism, especially around human rights, the environment, and animal welfare. On Sundays, when the avenue is closed to cars, demonstrators share the space with families and cyclists, holding banners, distributing leaflets, and sometimes organizing disruptive performance‑style actions. Vegetarian and vegan groups frequently denounce animal cruelty in industrial farming, using graphic images, silent “cube” protests with screens, or theatrical die‑ins to draw attention. You may find stands offering plant‑based food samples, petitions calling for stronger animal‑protection laws, or campaigns against fur, rodeos, and live‑animal transport.

On weekends, Avenida Paulista turns into São Paulo’s great open‑air living room. On Sundays it closes to cars for several hours, becoming a long pedestrian and cycling boulevard. People stroll, skate, bike, dance, and stop to watch street musicians, performers, and political or cultural demonstrations. Along the avenue you have heavyweight cultural institutions: MASP, Instituto Moreira Salles, Japan House, Itaú Cultural, Sesc Paulista, Casa das Rosas, and others, many with free or inexpensive exhibitions and events. Under the MASP’s dramatic concrete span you find antique and art markets, while nearby Parque Trianon offers a pocket of Atlantic Forest right beside the traffic. Cafés, bookshops, and shopping galleries fill in the gaps. For a visitor, a Paulista weekend is ideal for people‑watching, street photography, and hopping between museums without ever leaving one of the city’s most iconic streets.

This is a childhood photo of me, taken by my late father. It was captured not far from our home, on the banks of the Danube—more precisely, along an anabranch used by a canoeing club and for mooring smaller boats and old wrecks.

From the Botanic Gardens on Montjuïc hill, you get a wide and interesting view over several important landmarks in Barcelona. You can clearly see the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium, which was the main stadium for the 1992 Summer Olympics. It is a large, historic sports venue that was renovated for the Games and is still used today for events. Nearby stands the Torre de Comunicacions de Montjuïc, a tall white telecommunications tower designed by the famous architect Santiago Calatrava. It is about 136 meters high and has a very distinctive, curved shape. The design is meant to look like an athlete holding the Olympic flame, connecting it symbolically to the 1992 Olympics. In the distance, you may also notice a group of modern high-rise buildings. These belong to Barcelona’s business districts, likely areas such as Plaça d’Europa or parts of the city near Gran Via that contrast with the historic and cultural landmarks on Montjuïc.

The Catedral-Basílica de Santa María de Mallorca — known simply as La Seu — is one of the most striking Gothic structures in the Mediterranean. Its story began in 1229, when King James I of Aragon, after conquering the island from the Moors, ordered a cathedral to be built on the site of the former Great Mosque, a clear statement of who now spoke for God in this territory. Construction went on at the usual medieval pace, extending over almost 372 years and reaching completion in 1601, at a time when the Catholic Church in Spain was closely linked with royal power, overseas expansion and a very confident sense of religious authority. Centuries later, at the beginning of the 20th century, the genial architect Antoni Gaudí was invited to redesign the interior, introducing a more open and luminous space, a modest adjustment for an institution that preferred to change the stone before it changed itself.

Walking through your own city, you see many things but rarely really look at them. Once you start taking photographs, your eyes change: suddenly you notice details in buildings, artworks and streets that you must have walked past a hundred times. Later, at home, you look them up online and discover the stories behind them. The Supreme Court building on Župné námestie is one of those places. It is a late work by architect Vladimír Dedeček and a striking example of 1980s state architecture. Its long, heavy form and closed façade make it feel strict and distant, more like a fortress of power than an open public institution. It also has its own artwork: a large bronze relief called “Will of the People”, showing the figure of Justice holding a book that represents the constitution, with the scales hanging from her neck. Today we can read this building in two ways. On the one hand, it is an important part of the city’s history, with a clear artistic idea and high-quality craftsmanship. On the other hand, for many people it feels cold, closed and tied to an older idea of power and the state. A balanced view is to see it as a valuable piece of architectural heritage that should be carefully restored and adapted, so that it keeps its artistic meaning but better matches today’s ideas of a more open, citizen‑friendly public building.