Perhaps the only thing more amazing then the striking architecture of Gaudi’s Casa Batlló is the fact that it was for all purposes just that – a casa! Josep Batlló and his family commissioned Gaudi to build a house – a distinctive house granted – but a house nonetheless. It was a house they lived in until their deaths and remained in the family for nearly twenty years afterwards. It’s an impressive example of how art can be both breathtaking and have a pragmatic purpose. It also exemplifies Gaudi’s genius, the fact that he was capable of producing a perfect marriage of spectacle and home.
I went to the Romanian Parliament – known in Romanian as The House of The People – with my Romanian girlfriend and her mother recently and I’ve never been struck by more of a sense of pathetic irony in my life. Its name suggests a place where people are free and the ownership of the building is in the hands of the people. This however, has never been the case. Since its construction in 1984 to the present day, this palace has never been a house of the people. It is a place where tyranny rules, preposterous opulence reigns and freedom is ground to dust.
Scribblings and Broken Glass 