Brad Pitt left the south of France yesterday to go on some kind of charitable/sightseeing trip to Spain. Brad visited the urban renewal site designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in Aviles, in northern Spain (see photos here). He took a formal tour of the project with several architects, and the Alives mayor gave some nice quotes about Brad’s visit to the press:

Brad Pitt, who is taking part in a project to rebuild Hurricane Katrina-scarred New Orleans, toured the site where the Oscar Niemyer Cultural Centre, Aviles mayor Pilar Varela said. He went round with a group of architects on Sunday.

“He is interested in supporting the project, the cultural as well as the architectural aspects,” Varela told reporters.

The building is being erected in a port area in what was the centre of the city’s steel industry in the 1950s before it fell into decline.

It will feature an auditorium, a sight-seeing tower, an exhibition centre and a large outdoor square that will serve as a venue for cultural activities when it opens in 2010.

Local officials hope it will revive Aviles the way the opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum helped transform the Basque city of Bilbao from a rusty industrial backwater into a cultural capital over a decade ago.

Pitt was especially interested in the aspects of the project aimed at boosting environmental sustainability, said Varela.

“This is why Brad Pitt has came to visit the site,” she said, adding it was too soon to say how the star of Quentin Tarantino’s latest release, “Inglourious Basterds”, would participate in the project.

Pitt’s “Make It Right Project” calls for 150 homes to be built in the area of New Orleans where levees broke, and floodwater pushed homes from their foundations, when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

Niemeyer’s most famous works include Brazil’s futuristic capital city Brasilia and his flying saucer-shaped museum in Niteroi, just across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.

[From AFP]

Meanwhile, the tabloids are still ringing the bell for a Brangelina split, of course. On Friday, we covered In Touch Weekly’s version, and I just read Star Magazine’s version, which is strikingly similar. A lot of stuff based on Brad saying “the greater the love, the greater the loss” – which seems to be the siren call of split stories. A family insider told Star Magazine, “Brad told Angelina point-blank that love is not forever. Brad said he knows that they will always be connected because of the children but that he isn’t sure that things will work between them in the long run.” Star’s source also claims Angelina is “desperate” to work on their relationship, and that she’s persuaded Brad to start over. The article goes on to say that their French estate is a good place for them to reconnect (difficult if Brad is in Spain, but whatever), and from what their neighbors hear, “they are not shouting or arguing.” Nosy neighbors, eh?

Also, I finally read the full text of last week’s OK! Magazine cover story about Brad “sleeping on the couch” in France because he and Angelina are fighting all the time. There are a few more interesting pieces of information that weren’t included in the online version. One of Brad and Angelina’s recurring fights seems to be about her father, Jon Voight. I’ve read before that Brad has been pushing Angelina to reconnect with her dad, but in most of Angelina’s recent interviews, she hedges on the question of whether she and her dad really talk, or if they check in with each other, that sort of stuff.

OK!’s source claims, “Brad risked alienating Angie by insisting she let go of old resentments and get back on speaking terms with Jon… Brad wants his kids to know their grandfather and bond with him.” After making some half-hearted efforts, Angelina has “vowed to make good on her mom’s dying wish that Jon make amends” for the $180,000 worth of back child support owed to Marcheline Bertrand. For Angelina, it’s “the principle that matters.” The part about the back child support is true– it was in Marcheline’s will. And I don’t blame Angelina for standing on principle about it, either. That’s a lot of money to owe in back child support.

What I don’t buy is that Brad is trying to push Angelina into any kind of relationship with Jon Voight. That man just gets crazier and crazier, and I think that even Brad realizes that just because he has a close relationship with his parents, doesn’t mean everyone should and can. Voight’s latest controversy was his appearance on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News show over the weekend. I don’t even want to quote him, he’s so f-cking delusional. Just watch the crazy eyes and tell me if you would let him around your children.

Brad Pitt is shown at the NY premiere of The Time Traveler’s Wife on 8/12/09. Credit: CWNY/Fame Pictures