Gaudy, faulty towers

JunkThief is already planning a June trip to Manhattan (as well as one to Missouri, but that's another story) as well as one to Barcelona in the vague but near future. As with so many JunkThief adventures, random things in random places seem to intertwine.

In planning the June visit, a highly likely activity will be the Met's exhibit Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudi to Dali. (Gaudi, yes; Dali, no.) I know that some folks think Gaudi's work is ugly or gaudy or just weird. Maybe I agree, and that's probably why I love it.

The Met exhibit has resurfaced plans Gaudi sketched in 1908 for a 1181 foot hotel tower on what is now Ground Zero for what would have been the tallest building in the world were it built at the time. A number of Catalan artists submitted Gaudi's drawings for the "Freedom Tower" competition, and it lost to much, much uglier renditions. The bigger problem is not the designs themselves but the name itself for the proposed structure. If its ever built, I hope they change the name. Already that name is about as out of step with the times as acid wash jeans and the greatest hits of Rick Springfield. Maybe we can go back to saying French Fries and call it the French Tower if lucky.

Of course, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a famously never constructed mile-high tower. Ironically, his only high rise building is the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which for many years was used for offsite storage for the faltering Phillips Petroleum firm.

Then there is Torre Agbar (Agbar Tower) in Barcelona that people love or hate. Some say its a blight or insult to the legacy of Gaudi. Or it's just a huge phallus with a panoramic view of Catalonia.