I Only recently, during a trip to Barcelona, did I learn that a large part of the funding for Antoni Gaudí's glorious buildings came from Cuban slavery, where Catalan merchants were engaged until the late 1880s. is.
His greatest patron, Eusebi Güell, owed much of his wealth to a slave-based fortune built up by his stepfather and his father. This fact is not a secret, but it is rarely explored in official history. Does this mean that the great architect's work is fatally contaminated? Tourists lining up to visit buildings designed by Gaudi are… palace, park and unfinished church Should those who bear Güell's name blame themselves for doing such a thing? it's not. But no matter how difficult it is, knowing the truth is never wrong.
There is a special lesson for those who want to emulate Gaudi right now. Works like his come not only from singular genius, but also from surplus capital, which often has dark origins. Behind many great buildings lie great crimes that make Balzac almost beyond recognition.
vanity project
It's up to movie critics to fully capture the sheer wonder of Francis Ford Coppola's late, empire-themed $120 million binfire. megalopolis. I just observe how eerily the protagonist of this work, an architect named Cesar Catilina, captures the grandiosity and self-effacing profundity of some people in his profession. Dressed in priestly black clothing and chauffeured to and from his Chrysler Building penthouse in a vintage black Citroën DS, this man confuses his facility to generate ectoplasmic digital doodles with his powers to save the world. Masu.
He blows up people's houses because they're in the way of his vision, yet keeps the message going like Tara's Shakespearean fortune cookie. “Humans deserve to be called a great miracle.” “Our Mother Earth has given us the gift of seeing a future that is undeniably beautiful.”
The character, played by Adam Driver, is flawless and genius, portraying a hilarious architectural vanity that rivals the movie's Gary Cooper. fountain head and woody harrelson A sneaky suggestion. I've actually met famous architects who were just as ridiculous as this. The only thing I can say is that I think Catiline should be the main character of this movie.
There is no great advertising for Britain.
It is a great victory that the country that invented the industrial revolution has just closed its history. last coal-fired power plantat Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire. The powerful cooling towers at this and similar facilities were also a major victory at a time when climate change was unheard of. They evoke affection from many people living nearby. It would be madness to preserve all these structures, but it would also be madness to erase all traces of them from the land.
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If you want to condense all the evils of modern Britain's private-public interface into one space with the help of giant alembics and Bunsen burners, look no further than London's Euston Station. This is critical infrastructure being destroyed by the canceled and restarted plans for the HS2 high-speed rail line, which may or may not eventually be completed.
Around £300 million is being spent on redesigns that may never materialize, but neighborhoods devastated To make way for the development, the station's quiet, noble modernist concourse was demolished and the wall panels replaced with cheap plywood.
Passengers waiting in the usually crowded space for teasingly slow platform announcements were bombarded with giant animated advertisements, and finally Terminated by ministerial order Last Friday. Everything related to value extraction is exploited to its limits. Anything that has to do with practicality, pleasure, human life, or basic comfort fails over and over again.
