After spending several weeks in sun-drenched Sarajevo, which I mostly spent breathing in nature and exploring the mountains, last night I arrived in gray-ish looking Rotterdam. As I rolled my bags through the city center, tall glass buildings and straight roads seemed to pull me back into the orderly system with every step.

While Sarajevo’s streets and surroundings offer a certain freedom of physical movement and encourage spontaneity of physical expression, Rotterdam’s industrial architecture seems to serve a more functional purpose in creating an orderly world that, among other things, imposes restrictions on the space we claim with our bodies. These contrasting experiences of architecture are probably best understood by us coexisting in two (or more) different cultures. Especially when those cultures differ in mentality, temperament and social structures.

This relationship between the body and functional architecture is that special aspect explored in Symphony of the Body, which uses flamenco to explore the architecture of Rotterdam Central Station. A poetic and essayistic short film in which my dear friend and colleague Monica Ruiz explores her two worlds: Spain and the Netherlands.