In Barcelona, Marina St. upwards, when crossing the bridge, at left, an old building without the façade wall can be seen, with all its rooms exposed, perhaps awaiting demolition. A cabinet and a bed are still there. Sometimes I stop in front of it and try to imagine what kind of life lead the people that lived there. In that cabinet, did a couple store a nice table service? old trip yellowish postcards? Did they watch TV together sitting on a sofa? And who slept in that bed? lived he alone? did he feel cold in winter? This view of the building is like examining the inside of a dead organism, after removing the skin.
I can imagine a view of the “living” building, as if we had a device like the tomography scans used in health care that provide snapshots of slices of the body. With such a device, I could observe the behavior of the human community the way people do with ant farms.
Now, buildings are closed boxes that hide what is inside. This imaginary device, like when we extract a frame from a beehive, would revel the inner cubicles and the beings that occupy them:
a boy does his homework; in the bathroom, someone has left the WC cover up; in the kitchen, a soup is being cooked for dinner; an old man lies in bed, sick; a boy and a girl play in disguise; a couple watches TV; in a luthier’s workshop downstairs, a man polishes a viol with garnet paper. In another slice it is not clear whether someone in front of a bookshelf is either mopping the floor or dancing; table ready for dinner; Mrs. Morningsun; , a man is sitting in the closet, reading a magazine; a woman reads a handheld, a man plays the piano; in the office downstairs people check balances and bills.
