barcelona ventana

sifting through my compulsive shots of windows, I have super-edited and serialized them into vagariously contrasting pairs::
such as the obsessively glass-louvered surround of the Torre Agbar with the paranoiac bricked-up and metal-grilled lock-down of the above ex-window...

***

the most basic wood-framed square window under a roof long gone!... with this, one of the most ornately iced neo-gothic-moorish window of a modernista concoction designed for a chocolatier no less! [the Casa Amatller by Josep Puig i Cadafalch is located beside the Casa Batllo on the Illa de la Discordia of the Passeig de Gracia]

***

the simple grace of sinuous art nouveau arches [even if the curtains behind them are a bit tattered!] with the classical span of disheveled domesticity and its inelegant wash-day hangings...

***

casements from on high in elevated airiness; portholes for fathoms below in submerged darkness...

the "eyes" of structural entities come blinded, shielded, wide open... reflecting and absorbing some light, but still mysteriously unrevealing within their shaded chambers...and yet ever come hither to my focused eyeful!

barcelona proxima

constantly upspotting when we walk, I am always rewarded with architectural features and ornamental details and unexpected elements such as this finely carved tree canopy that continues down to the realistically rendered trunk pilaster of a storefront...

the high-design globular light standards that must emit enchanting pixie beams into the soft night...

a pair of charmingly unobtrusive brackets and grille on a crumbling hilltop casa...

the sexy cruciform steel post that barely nudges smooth painted skin in the Pavilion Mies van der Rohe...

and of course, the fantastical iron creatures that fly out of gothic gloom into the lightness of our catalonian reveries...

barcelona momenta

stepping lightly over an intricately detailed sidewalk placa...

flitting by a dark graffitied doorway with very cool aldabon...

catching a glimpse of "amor de arte" high up on a corner wall...

 

passing by an ornate closed-up taquilla on La Rambla...

 

spotting a multi-dotted tile-edged alféizar at Parc Guell...

 

riding along randomly patterned hand-laid losas...

casa batllo

certain houses have captivated me deeply over the years, particularly ones where the architects have had carte blanche over most aspects of their designs - Casa Malaparte, Maison de Verre, Villa Savoye, and my father's house, of course! - and now in Barcelona, the Casa Batllo has been seducing me ever so softly with its undulating lightness, its whimsical elegance, and all the visionary eccentricities of its ebullient creator...Antoni Gaudi

  

 light flows in parabolic waves down the attic hallway...

 

light floats the glass cells of the protozoa skylights...

  

light curves in through the openings to the roof caprices...

  

light billows ephemeral laciness in the laundry room...

 

light, hushed and holy, infuses opalescent panes up on high...

[Casa Batllo, Antoni Gaudi, 1906

Passeig de Gracia, 43, Barcelona]

numeroso numeros

a collection of numerable moments during our journey through catalonia, the basque country and espana...

 barcelona-estacio de frança 9-8

  

 zaragoza 5-7

  

 pamplona 8

 donostia/san sebastian 129-130

 

madrid 13

mies barcelona chair

 

steel legs on black plush,

the marble surround...

  

white leather aligns,

silent forms upon a cold set...

  

teutonic order reiterates,

a chair dares speak its name...

  

from barcelona issue,

the form is not so silent yet...

  

 ["O Chair shape! Fair attitude! with brand

of leather mend and metal overwrought,

with steel branches upon the trodden rug;

You, silent form, tease us out of thought

as will eternity: Cold Design World!

When old age shall this generation waste,

You will remain, in midst of other woe

than ours, a friend to man, to whom you say,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all

you know on earth, and all you need to know."]*

*With profuse apologies to John Keats for mauling his lovely last verse from "Ode on a Grecian Urn" for my momentary lapse of indulgence over an unravished, unwearied chair... may you live long and true, la Cadira Barcelona!