The Showerhead

My cousin Marcos Algara started his blog a few days ago. I'd like to quote (from his blog) a quote from Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" and this image of Madrid's Barajas Airport T4 by Sir Richard Rogers. (sick)

“-What is it that I like so much about the house you’re building for me, Howard?

-A house can have integrity, just like a person,” said Roark, “and just as seldom.

-In what way?

-Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the house needs it – and for no other reason. You see it from here as it is inside. The rooms in which you’ll live made the shape. The relation of masses was determined by the distribution of space within. The ornament was determined by the method of construction, an emphasis of the principle that makes it stand. You can see each stress, each support that meets it. Your own eyes go through a structural process when you look at the house, you can follow each step, you see it rise, you know what made it and why it stands. But you’ve seen buildings with columns that support nothing, with purposeless cornices, with pilasters, moldings, false arches, false windows. You’ve seen buildings that look as if they contained a single large hall, they have solid columns and single, solid windows six floors high. But you enter and find six stories inside. Or buildings that contain a single hall, but with a façade cut up into floor lines, band courses, tiers of windows. Do you understand the difference? Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by need to impress. The determining motive of your house is in the house. The determining motive of the others is in the audience.”

ciao