Building An Interactive Story

For many years I have been an admirer of the great Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi, ever since making a pilgrimage to Barcelona to see his work in person- but one does not simply “see” Gaudi’s work. Walking around the cathedral he designed, La Sagrada Familia, felt more like a of game of discovery as my eyes picked out surface details among the masses of shapes. They appear like the accretions on an undersea castle. I remember noticing a life-sized fir tree amid the human and animal figures, all of which look as if they are cast from life.

The idea wrote about that Gaudi that I find most intriguing has to do with a metaphor. He said that he was interested in designing buildings so that, for the inhabitants, the space felt like the inside of a dragon. Using sculpted forms and curved walls, even his apartment buildings create an experiential shift as one moves through the twists and turns. His metaphor is underscored by the ceramic tile finials running along the ridges of the roof, and textures on the exterior walls that look like scales.

By entering a building by the great Catalan master, we enter a virtual world in which we must provide the protagonist- ourselves. Whether we think experiencing space in a surprising way is disorienting or intriguing, we are shown that the standard flat floor and walls are a cultural assumption, and perhaps an unnescessary limitation for our imaginations. Exploring the inside of a dragon, albeit virtual, makes all things possible.

Image of Casa Batllo in Barcelona, Spain.