Art is a True Mirror

Here's a little comparison for your consideration: the first is a typical American apartment building. Not that you could tell from the design or anything else in the photo, but this one happens to be in South Carolina:

Now compare this to La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Gaudi:

Perhaps I've spent too much of the last several weeks shuttling my friends' kids around the Boston and Portsmouth suburbs, but what I see in this typical American apartment building is a reflection of the waters stagnating in the rut we call contemporary American architecture. I am sickened by the version of the "American dream house" that's being sold today. As I drive around the developments in eastern Mass. and southern NH, I see clearcut tracts of once forested land that have been paved with winding, poorly irrigated roads, built up with rows of soulless monster houses that vary only by the lawn lighting, the selection of one of five house colors, and the size and number of SUVs parked in the drive.

As a kid growing up in inner city Buffalo, my American dream house was one in the country, maybe an old farm house that I could spend my life fixing up, a huge, natural lawn in the back with a stand of trees, which were also part of my yard, and perhaps a stream running through it as well. Driving around these spiritually vacuous subdevelopments, I don't see anything that even comes close to resembling my dream house. I wanted this type of house because it would be inspiring to me, it would be my work of art, I would make it what I wanted it to be, and I would live there. It would reflect my soul and my spirit.

I am inspired by Gaudi's work because he took La Pedrera (aka Casa Mila) and redesigned it to be awe-inspiring while maintaining it as a functional living space. He maximized the flow of air and natural light throughout the building, far more than contemporary buildings did or what modern buildings (sans air conditioning) do now. I don't know what the original residents thought of the building when they first moved or, for that matter, what the current residents think, but I can tell you that if I lived there, I would look forward to coming home EVERY day. That would be part of my dream. I would draw inspiration and a creative charge out of its spirit. If I had to live in a city as large as Barcelona (~2 million people), I would want to live in La Pedrera.

My dream house aside for the moment, I ask the question prompted by Nehru's quote: what does the world see of our minds when they look at the current state of American architecture? I'm afraid the rut we're digging deeper into reflects an accurate image of our President's desire to make every "liberated" country just like ours: strip-mined of its natural resources and paved over with strip malls in the name of creating rabid capitalism, consumerism, and instant gratification.