Casa Batlló already belongs to the metaverse, which is that place where I still don’t really know where it is. I look at his drunken images, lettuce green, lemon yellow, created by the Turkish artist Refik Anadol with the collaboration of a neural circuit borrowed from an entity.
It is auctioned today at Christie’s in New York. Starting price: between one and two million euros. There is no architect’s mind more usurped than that of poor Gaudí. For some time now everyone has wanted to get into his head, speak on his behalf, give their opinion for him, as if the brain of a genius could be trephined like this, postmortem, just like that, until squeezing the last benefit. They have eternalized the Sagrada Família, varnished La Pedrera and, now, mapped Casa Batlló.
There was a time when, for personal reasons, I had to go regularly to La Pedrera. We were amazed, we envied the few remaining neighbors. From one of its balconies we saw the entourage of the wedding of the Infanta Cristina with the unmentionable Iñaki pass by, and on its roof full of soldiers-chimneys we listened to good jazz some night. Goodbye to Vinçon.
The strange building was an object of desire, it was necessary to watch out for Japanese tourists who tried to take doorknobs, a tile corner or an elevator wedge… Then it was customary to pay homage to buildings by evoking those who had lived there long ago; today imagining futures.
This is how an old apartment was recreated inside La Pedrera, with all its modernist requisites, and people came in to see how their ancestors had lived. You know, the old oven, the wrought iron planter, the boiler, the white marble, the display case…
What would Gaudí think of his Casa Batlló after passing through the metaverse? He may have liked what they’ve done with her, he may have found it exaggerated and bland. Or a real bullshit. He may even have chatted with the author.
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