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Transportation Infrastructure Inspires a Metaphysical 21st Century Castle

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Is this what a castle looks like, for this century? This gigantic concrete house in Spain from Estudio Arquitectura Campo Baeza and superbly photographed by Javier Callejas really has the grandness and scale of a medieval castle.

Yet, at the same time, it is totally modern.

The inspiration seems to be an outdoor subway station platform. Look at how the entire house is a longitudinal podium, that extends from side to side of the entire length of the site.

I’ve stood on Bart platforms in the San Francisco Bay Area that look just like this. This house has something of the impersonal and unsympathetic feeling of modern transportation infrastructure.

The castle lackeys park the behemoth limousine fleet down here.

You’d settle in to survey your vast estate here – on the platform.

Would you feel in danger of being squashed between this mighty concrete slab above you and below you? The glass enclosure is so delicate. The giant concrete structure has such tremendous force.

The tremendous power of the modern ruling class, but also its fragility is made manifest.

To me this feels like a modern take on the castle. This would be your measured life lived within the precarious confines of a powerful and overwhelming infrastructure.

Would you eat here?

But it’s quite a hike up those distant stairs at the far end of the platform. If you made a cup of tea down there, it would certainly be cold by the time it gets to this table. Would palace servants bring it up?

You’d almost hate to put anything in this room, that perfectly frames the distant cloudscape. Really, what could possibly be done in here?

I suppose you and your courtiers could greet visiting royalty from another castle over the horizon. A very metaphysical and interesting room. The contrast between the plain walls and the distant horizon is reminiscent of the portraits of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Even the clouds pay homage. But is that the architect’s genius? You’ve heard about houses sited for the prevailing winds. This exterior subway station-cum-castle appears to have been sited for the prevailing winds – at the stratospheric level.

Altogether, a very intriguing and strange home, that seems to capture the great and increasing inequality of our times. Here in the US, a new mega-wealthy class is almost like medieval royalty. But this house is in Spain. Maybe things are not as bad in Europe. Maybe I’m reading it wrong. What’s your take on it?

Found at DailyTonic