Word: architecturee
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What Hughes makes clear to us at the outset is that, like most any other city, Barcelona is made legible only in the context of its past. And the easiest access to the past is inscribed in the city's profoundly variegated architecture. "The political and economic history of Barcelona...
The book admiringly traces the evolution of these irrepressible democratic impulses, but they become less important when set beside the city's magnificently mixed-up architecture, an aggregate of different periods and styles. Architecture is the second of Barcelona's most enduring features after democracy, and fittingly enough, Hughes treats...
Hughes's starting point is simple: architecture is a form of political expression invariable available only to those in power. It provides a kind of ready-made syntax that allows a political institution to represent its power through the planning of a city, or the construction of a building.
From the Roman walls built 20 centuries ago to the weird and wonderful creations of Gaudi, Hughes spends much of the book recounting the history in order to explain the architecture--examining the roots in order to look more closely at the tree, as he might put it. Much of...
This is where Hughes' obvious talents as an art historian consistently convince and impress us. The sheer force of the narrative that Hughes crafts from the most basis elements of the city--its buildings--arrives in the sensual pleasure of the writing. He takes on the architecture of the Eixample...