Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

[Nikka]

.....................

[Stavros]

It was not until I went to Barcelona (some years ago now) that I realised just how much I detest the architecture of Antoni Gaudi i Cornet.

This has nothing to do with the plot to obliterate the Sagrada Familia, a structure that should be left unfinished as a project if only to confirm it should never have been started. I also think Frank Lloyd Wright is over-rated and these days the Guggenheim in Manhattan looks like a car park, representing the savage irony of Wright's influence on architecture across time. I compare it to the architecture of a gorgeous transexual I met last week with external contours that present a pleasing aspect to the eye, and embellishments that offer provocative thought, intrigue and exploration, opening into a compliant interior in which one feels belonging rather than loss.
How odd to find that the phrase 'architecture sucks' is appropriate in this tread.

[Nikka]

again today

[ed_jaxon]

Stavros bite your tongue young man. Frank Lloyd Wright is considered a genius who could do no wrong in these parts

[Stavros]

Haven't been called a young man for some time, so I take that as a compliment. Unfortunately, car park chic doesn't do it for me, and there is the rather more urgent problem that Wright, convinced he could make buildings without a depth of concrete foundation slapped up his elegant slabs that over time began to show signs of cracking to the extent that his famous building Fallingwater was going to be re-named Falling-in-the-Water because the walls could not support the weight of the floors. He should have thought of that, but it is a chronic problem with his buildings. Yes, the interior of the Unity Temple in Chicago is full of light and space, but the peculiar fetish for zips on the exterior makes one wonder if Wright at the time was thinking of a South State St Burlesque or the joy of not having to button his fly. And all this before one asks why his buildings are so cold -could it be because he never paused to think of the cost of heating them? Aesthetics can get an architect a long way in the world, but a building must have a practical value too.