Our Google Chromecast delivered this ambient photograph that the Wife and I could not identify when we wandered through the living room on Wednesday. Was it a gear? Was it an organic growth? We couldn’t tell, so I took a screenshot of it on my phone. I looked it up today, and it is Gaudi. Specifically Casa Batlló. That explains everything.
(Pinterest embeds in WordPress are almost mythical; as in, I can’t do a damn thing with them or modify them even though they show up. I’m not happy about it, but that is what it looks like.)
…but I hear you saying “who the hell is a Gaudi?” Ah. You aren’t an archiphile. Let me explain then. Antoni Gaudí is one of the more infamous architects in history. Rather than go through the entire story of his most famous achievement, I’ll let 99% Invisible explain it all to you. Here is the audio for the episode:
But the webpage located here has a photo history about the longest-running construction project in modern history, La Sagrada Familia. There is no way I can do that story justice no matter what I say here. Let Roman explain it to you with words and pictures. Or you could just watch this short video:
I’ve never seen any of his work in person. Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, where all of his structures are located, is out of my travel price range. But I’ve known of him by reputation for longer than I’ve actually known his name. Images of his works are almost unmistakably marked with the stamp of his unique genius. Only very recently has his style of design become easier to visualize; and only a select few architects like Frank Gehry practice these flowing, natural designs. It takes aviation design software to achieve what Gaudi did with strings and weights hanging from his ceiling back in the 192o’s.
That is Gaudi.
Postscript
I’m going to have to turn in my Alan Parsons Project fan credentials. I get a fail at recognizing album cover art:
That is a facet of Gaudi’s work on the album cover. I didn’t realize the album was named for him, either. How didn’t I know this album was about the architect? In my defense, I’ve never listened to this album before. I only figured out that what I casually read as gaudy in the record store (gaudy is not my thing) was Gaudi the architect while searching for “La Sagrada Familia Spotify” and trying to update the audio embed to Spotify from the Stitcher link I had relied on previously. Stitcher doesn’t like embeds anymore and Spotify auto-embeds in WordPress. It is simplicity itself to use their embeds, and hey, I found some more music to listen to while I was at it.
The rest of the Alan Parsons discography is already in my music. Eye In the Sky is one of my favorite albums. I need to stop now or I’ll end up on a Stargate or Helen Mirren tangent next.
Jan. 4, 2023 – Been getting dozens of hits on this one lately. I wonder if the image is back in circulation on chrome cast? If you read this, leave a reply to tell me why you came here. Please?
Yes it appears again on Google Chrome 😉
I couldn’t find any information on the image when I went looking the first time. It took some serious sleuthing to track down the light fixture in that Gaudi structure. Since I had done all that work I figured I could at least put it on the blog for others to profit from.