She's back, and this time, she's rested

It would be a big lie to say I'm happy to be back, but we had the good fortune to spend a night in Paris on the way home, so at least I'm happy to be in Brussels, which for all its imperfections is not and never will be Paris. Thank god. I'm not necessarily opposed to big cities, but I suppose because of my history there Paris makes me feel like a cockroach struggling through a pile of cockroaches. If we had gone straight from Barcelona to Brussels, it would have been torture. Like 90% of the adult population that's visited, I fell deeply in love with it - swallowed every one of its clichés hook, line and sinker and was hungry for more.

There were a lot of things I loved about it, but especially I fell in love with Gaudi, that beautiful batshit crazy man. Up at the Park Güell, I had a little cry as we gazed over the magic-mushroom-and-crucifix-ornamented houses to the city beyond. I think I was upset that the whole world couldn't live in Barcelona, or maybe that every city in the world didn't have an architect like Gaudi in it who could make such lovely spaces with such commonplace materials. There's just something so friendly about what he built - so welcoming and so sympathetic - that I couldn't believe it. Really called to mind that other batshit crazy man who I love, Hundertwasser. Though I suppose Hundertwasser didn't have Gaudi's sense of structure, and Gaudi didn't have Hundertwasser's sense of nonsense.

I know there's a cost factor involved, but it made me hate most modern designers and architects for their apparent inability to build things the people who use them find pleasant. Catalan modernists had an aesthetic humanity, or humility - they didn't seem to want to seem clever so much as massage your tired eyeballs, and cater to your need for something beautiful to look at. Domenech too - we couldn't believe our happy eyes when we saw the Saint Pau hospital. And as Robert Hughes wrote, unlike Sagrada Familia, that was finished in the architect's lifetime, and has done and will do far more good for the people of Barcelona than Sagrada Familia is ever likely to. Sagrada Familia is a can't miss, though . . . it's fascinating to see the work being carried out before you, and a real bafflement to try to figure out how the fuck it has been permitted to install some of the things that have been installed since Gaudi's death.

By the way, I sincerely recommend the Robert Hughes book I was going on about before I left, whether you intend to go to Barcelona or not - it's a great read. But if you do intend to go to Barcelona it's indispensable - like having a clever, sarcastic, enthusiastic friend whispering in your ear as you go from place to place. And he goes on about Gaudi better than I could. But there was one thing I wanted to mention that Gaudi did, to help him get those strange angles that make his arches and elements look weirdly alive - catenary string models. He would hang weighted arcs of string, appropriately connected to each other, photograph the intricate result and turn the photo upside down to get an approximation of what he could do to a roof that would allow it to bear its own weight. Fucking - fucking - genius. Pictures to follow.