Robbie Mahtook, Lafayette attorney and owner of A. Hays Town home, originally owned and built by Horace Rickey.While in Louisiana this spring to study the residential architecture of A. Hays Town, Texas architect Steve Chambers spent several days in Lafayette, Louisiana. Chambers visited the home of Robert and Judy Mahtook, located between the ULL campus and the Oil Center. The home was originally built by the Oil Center contractor, Horace Rickey, for his own family. It was one of the first homes in the city designed by A. Hays Town. The original home of Maurice Heymann, developer of the Oil Center, was also designed by Town and gifted to the university by the family and is incorporated into the campus buildings of ULL. The Heymann home predates the Mahtook home. A comparison of the two homes demonstrates A. Hays Town’s gradual evolution from French Norman with International modern influences (The Heymann Home) to his distinctive embrace of the Louisiana folk vernacular (The Mahtook Home).

Lafayette is located in south central Louisiana and serves as an economic center in Louisiana. The region's legendary joie de vivre and Cajun and Creole cultures create a unique environment for work and play. A recent issue of Southern Business and Development magazine named Lafayette as a Top 10 place in the South for the "creative class," citing Lafayette's risk-taking spirit and technological advantages. Lafayette has one of the most robust economic infrastructures in the country: a flourishing petroleum industry, a well-trained workforce, unmatched quality of life, and a favorable environment for their business community. There are many colorful festivals celebrating food, wine, music, and “letting the good times roll.”The Mahtook Home demonstrates the distinctive Louisiana vernacular style developed by Hays Town

Mr. Town often commented that his measurement and documentation of the historical buildings for the government throughout the South aided him greatly in the development of his particular style of home design based on Louisiana folk architecture. Moving back to Louisiana in 1939, Town started his own architectural firm in Baton Rouge. Eventually, he designed a home for a friend and liked it so well that he began to concentrate on residential design, which seemed "a more satisfactory outlet" for his talents.

Town’s 70-year residential design career provides us with an exemplary model in which to study the evolution of 20th-century American architecture, which spanned from the domination of Beaux Arts formal design, through European Modernism, to a period where areas of American society became appreciative of their own regional influences. A. Hays Town’s remarkable talent and logic enabled him to assimilate a wide variety of influences from his education and early career as well as those presented to him through his recording the historical examples within his region. It contributes both to an understanding of the potential use of vernacular traditions in general, and specifically, those of the rich architecture of Louisiana's captivating history.

The Maurice Heymann Homestead, on the campus of ULL, represents an earlier Town design with its French Norman and modern International Style influencesHis earlier home designs borrowed from American Colonial and Georgian architectural styles. As his career progressed, he began developing a more unique style influenced heavily by Louisiana’s Spanish and French architecture. Interior courtyards and fountains reflect the Spanish tradition, while raised exterior stairs and French doors reflect the Creole influence of New Orleans. He also adapted his home designs to the climate of southern Louisiana with the implementation of large roof overhangs, the abundance of breezeways, and cross-ventilation for air circulation.

Town's involvement in the selection of interior materials, colors, and even furnishings was extensive, going as far as to recommend a certain type of dog to accent the house. Town was one of the first architects to salvage old building materials and incorporate them into new houses, giving his homes a comfortable, well-worn elegant feel. He would often search abandoned warehouses and rice mills for floorboards, fireplace mantels, or flagstone, handpicking the individual elements that would eventually be incorporated into his architecture.Judy Mahtook enjoys the deep roof overhangs on Town's porches that allow for more comfort in the intense humidity of Louisiana's climate

The Mahtook Home demonstrates all of the mature design decisions that came to define the A. Hays Town style. The construction, materials, proportions, and details all reflect his regional influences from climate to folk culture and create his distinctive aesthetic expression. It is confidently related to the preservation and creation of this intriguing region and its beguiling cultural identity. Robbie and Judy Mahtook both concur when asked how it feels to live in this historical residence, “we feel an immense pride, yet a strong responsibility, to maintain very careful stewardship of this home. We want the house to be a place where we and our children can live and entertain guests, but we also want to honor the legacy of this gifted man and his beautiful architecture.” Steve Chambers, a Texas architect, admires the depth of respect the Mahtooks have for their home and the lengths to which they are going to protect this cultural treasure for the Lafayette community, currently and for future generations.

In the first gallery, below, the A. Hays Town design for the Heymann Home shows the influences of French Norman and modern International Style of the 1930's in its details and proportions.

In the second gallery, below, The Mahtook Home demonstrates the Town evolution from French and modern international style influences to implementation of the Louisiana folk vernacular with its deep porches, breezeways, recycled materials, Hays-designed light fixtures and drapery. The drapes were double-sided with the more 'plain folk' pattern turned to the street and the elaborate hand-dyed patterns facing the interior of the home's living area. Lush landscape utilizes indigenous plant materials in a more casual pattern rather than a formal French garden. The family room has a simple stair from the upper floor 'garconnier' as opposed to a grand stair in the entry.

Door to a salon in one of the palace apartments on 15 Carrer de Montcada, where the Museu Picasso is locatedA lot has been said, written, and photographed about the art and life of Pablo Picasso. But, after seeing the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, it becomes apparent that he made living and loving part of his oeuvre as well. What we thought we knew about him shifted dramatically, after visiting the structure dedicated to him by his friend and personal secretary, Jaume Sabartés. Picasso lived the key years of his apprenticeship as an artist in Barcelona. He established and maintained strong links to the city throughout his life. It was here that he wanted a museum. Picasso left no will; his heirs paid the estate taxes owed to France with works from his collection. These form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain. But, Picasso’s true wish was the creation of a museum in Barcelona, proposed by Sabartés to the City Council of Barcelona. In 1963, the museum became a reality and opened its doors in the gothic Palace Aguilar, located at number 15 Carrer de Montcada.

The Museu Picasso of Barcelona currently occupies five grand houses or palaces dating from the 13th through 14th centuries. These structures have undergone renovations over the years, with the most important ones taking place in the 18th century. From the first opening of the Museu Picasso in 1963 to the present day, the facility has grown from using one of the palaces on Montcada to the five that house the collection today. The palaces are a good example of Catalan civic gothic style. They have a common structure surrounding a courtyard with access to the main floor via an outdoor open stairway, strikingly reminiscent of Spanish Colonial achitecture we photographed in Pueblo, Mexico.

The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of Picasso’s early works, created while he was living in Spain, including many rarely seen works which reveal Picasso’s firm grounding in classical techniques. The museum also holds many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father’s tutelage, as well as the extensive collection of Jaume Sabartés, Picasso’s close friend and personal secretary. Though this museum contains very little of the work that we have grown know as a "Picasso," it does a great deal to inform us about the tradtional art training that he experienced in his formative years.Steve Chambers under the arches surrounding the courtyard of the Picasso Museum in palace apartments in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona

The art housed here is interesting, but it’s the stories we discover within the staggering variety of media and the insight it gives us into how Picasso directs his own growth as an artist that elevate our experience in this museum. His attractions and relationships guide the direction he takes. Chance meetings at the Café Quatre Gats with the Catalan avant garde influenced by Catalan Modernism create an interest in landscapes and poster painting. Immediately following this encounter, he founds the magazine Arte Joven. He meets El Greco and is drawn to elongation and melancholy, which we see in his later work, when he exhibits in Toledo, Spain. Upon moving to Paris in early 1900, he meets up with the Bohemians, where the city and artists in many ways are the center of the world. The Exposition in 1900 is a reflection of Paris' cultural and political importance at the end of the 19th century. The many traveling performers at the exhibition fascinate Picasso and we see in his art many of the scenes he observes. This is also the first time that Picasso is exposed to the works of Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, and Gaugin. His friend from Sitges, Josep Sunyer, is already living in Montmartre at the time, as are other Catalan artists. Picasso soon moves into the same area with Carles Casagemas. The suicide of his friend, Casagemas, moves Picasso from intense swaths of color to monochrome blue, as he begins to feel that art springs from suffering, sadness, mystery, sincerity, and the world of outcasts.

In later years another chance meeting, with a couple making pottery in the south of France, he shifts his interest to ceramics. In the final rooms of these quarters, we see the beginning of his transformation into what we now know as cubism and a clear break from the way everyone else is painting at the time. There are clues in the paintings as to what emerges as one of modern art’s greatest painters.  But, we are far more riveted by our realization that relationships drive many artists to take meandering walks with people they meet in order to discover who they are and how they need to tell us what they see and feel. Far from being just a civic building in which to hang art, these ancient apartments provide doors and windows into the process of becoming an artist...Picasso selected his secretary and confidante wisely. It's clear that Jaume Sabartés understood his employer and friend, Pablo. We leave satisfied, having made his acquaintance.

(Photograph credits: Stephanie Chambers) The gallery, below, consists of photos of the architecture of the courtyard and entrance to the palaces that comprise the Museu Picasso of Barcelona. We were not allowed to photograph the collection. That the renovation of these apartments is sensitive is seen most vividly in the cisterns that once held water, now beneath the glass floor on which we walked in the museum (third row, first photo on left).

Philip, Melissa, Marla, David, and Mary Anne walk through the "Castillet," built in 1368 as fortress and gatewayWhen most people think of France, they think of Paris. But, the diverse region of Languedoc-Rousillion in the south, just across the border of Spain and a short drive north of Girona and Barcelona, is an enchanting place to see. The Languedoc region is often called the “poor man's south of France.” It starts from the French/Spanish border in the foothills of the Pyrenees with the Côte Vermeille to its southeast border and stretches all the way up along the coast, next to Provence. In this region, there are many castles to explore, wine to taste and, in the fall, one can help harvest their grapes. There's plenty of coastline without the Cote d'Azur cost and interesting opportunities for hiking and biking. In Perpignan, we find friendly people and a ferment of French and Catalan cultures. Steak and pommes frites (on this day we had boar shank and frites), bullfighting, sangria and paella, and street names and building signs both French and Catalan signal this merging of cultures. Perpignan was the capital of the former province and county of Roussillon and the continental capital of the Kingdom of Majorca in the 13th and 14th centuries. Iberian blood flows in the veins of the descendants of the thousands of refugees who fled over the mountains at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Yet, on this recent visit, French is the dominant language and we manage to get by with the petite peu that we speak.

In Vieille Ville (the old town), near the cathedral, is the "Castillet,” built by the King of Aragon in 1368 to protect and to control the town. You can still see the arched, pink-brick donjon (dungeon), the corner towers, and the 15th century hexagonal watchtower. The machicolated (projection of the parapet over corbels providing slots that faced straight down to the bottom of the wall so that attackers could be fired at or have hot oil or water poured on them) and crenellated building is both a gateway to and fortress for the village. Part of the charm of the Castillet derives from its bulky-looking tower, which can be climbed for a good view of the town. The widest point of the River Tet flows through the heart of Perpignan, before emptying into the sea. This energetic confluence is one of the best known and most beautiful in southern France and there are a series of boat trips available along the river. If you wish to stay on dry land, there are lovely footpaths along the majority of the river in the heart of the city, offering cool green spaces and affording interesting architectural views of Perpignan’s older structures.The apse and stained glass behind main altar of Cathedral Sainte Jean Baptiste

The Cathedral Saint-Jean-Baptiste has 11th and 12th century chapels, glittering altars, unique nave that hosts beautiful altarpieces in the Catalan style, and an interesting cupola and clock tower. Retables (altarpieces) from the 17th-century also grace the cathedral. A painted and carved head depicting the demise of John the Baptist hangs from the vaulted ceiling in the nave. This church is the starting point of the famous "Sanch Procession (“the Lord’s precious blood”),” celebrated in Perpignan and two other French villages. The tradition, once forbidden by the Roman Church, was banned in the 18th century as being “too baroque.” It now takes place in Perpignan on Good Friday during Roman Catholic Holy Week. Historically, a distinctive high-peaked, masked robe is used to protect the identity of prisoners being led to their town's annual execution. This practical ceremony intermingled with Christian traditions of Good Friday is a ritual dating from 1416 when the Brotherhood of the Sanch was founded under the direction of St Vincent Ferrier, a Dominican monk. The penitents taking part today are dressed in red or black capes (called “caperutxa”) and conical hoods and carry “misteris," heavy statues representing different scenes of the Passion.

At the top of the town, the Spanish citadel encloses the Palace of the Kings of Majorca. The government has restored this structure, built in the 13th and 14th centuries, around a court encircled by arcades. You can see the old throne room, with its large fireplaces, and a square tower with a double gallery, some contemporary art, and a great view of the Pyrenees.

Flags of Languedoc-Rousillion, France, and Catalan fly over City Hall flanked on both sides by whimsical bronze arms sculptures, embracing blended cultureWhat this amazingly easy drive from our local ‘home’ near Girona teaches us on this trip to Perpignan is the ease that the European Union has created for travelers to this continent. There is no stress in driving from one border to another. And the surprises and treasures of each village, no matter the size, are a delight to our sense of adventure. We also realize that whatever one may think or feel about the Roman Catholic Church, it continues to be a repository for and steward of the art, history, and culture of early Europe. One can walk into any church in Europe and ‘read’ illustrious art history. The churches, big and small, tell us great stories about where its people have been. (Photography--with exception of Sanch Procession: Stephanie and Steve Chambers)

The gallery, below, illustrates Perpignan's blended French and Catalan cultures and its Roman Catholic history through its stone architecture, Holy Week traditions, and cuisine. The whimsy of the people is also apparent in the working sundial in the town hall courtyard and the rubberbands 'shot' on the three-story high clock in the Visitor's Bureau.

North facade of La Sagrada Famila (designed during Gaudi's lifetime)While in architecture school 45 years ago, I studied Gaudi's life work, La Sagrada Familia. Now I've finally seen it for myself. I've discussed it with other architects and sought out two Spanish architects while on this trip to Barcelona, who told me how they feel about it. I also asked a guide who is knowledgeable about Spanish history and architecture. I've thought about it for several days after our group's experience inside the structure, the pictures of which fail to capture what the space actually feels like. Provided here is an abbreviated background of this Spanish icon, which accompanies Stephanie's photos below. Our experience with this space cannot even be described by Stephanie's artful photography. But, rather than tell you what I think or feel about La Sagrada Familia, it would be more more meaningful for me, if our readers let me how the photos or your own personal experience in the space made you feel. Please share your comments with us by e-mail.

As it is with many works of art that stir controversy and fascination, it's open to multiple interpretations—no two people feel exactly the same about it. One thing I personally feel with certainty is that Gaudi found a way to separate himself from the physical environment in which he lived his everyday life in Catalan. What he designed in this church and other works that remain scattered about the city in no way reflect what his predecessors or contemporaries were doing. His body of architecture is completely original and appears to have sprung from his own non-derivative thinking. He lived and worked in an Art Nouveau setting, yet ignited a movement in this period that became its own genre, Modernisme. I left this structure questioning how an artist resists pressure to conformity to training, current trends, temptations to please others in order to find acceptance. How does someone trust his own voice more than convention, moving away from ossification toward the unorthodox?The crowds of people in this photo lend scale to the enormous structure

Life is this region of Spain is so closely connected to the natural world that artists and architects use plants and animal references as a recurring motif in their work. Rising out of the center of Barcelona like some magical cluster of needles and peaks left by a blowing wind and the exuberance of nature, the Sagrada Família can at first seem like piles of caves and grottos heaped on a labyrinth of stalactites, stalagmites, flora and fauna.

Soaring  skyward in intricately twisting levels of carvings and sculptures, part of the Nativity facade is made of stone from Montserrat, Barcelona's cherished mountain sanctuary and home of Catalonia's patron saint, La Moreneta, the Black Virgin of Montserrat. Gaudí himself was fond of comparing the Sagrada Família  to the soaring compact group of mountains west of town, Montserrat, where a plaque in one of the caverns reads "Lloc d'inspiració de gaudí," the place of the inspiration of Gaudí.

The sheer immensity and scale of the structure and the energy flowing from it are staggering. The current lateral facades will one day be dwarfed by the main Glory facade and central spire—the Torre del Salvador (Tower of the Savior), which will be crowned by an illuminated polychrome ceramic cross and soar to a final height 1 yard shorter than a nearby mountain guarding the entrance to the port of Barcelona because Gaudí felt it improper for the work of man to surpass that of God.

Steve Chambers in central aisle of the 5-aisle Gothic planThe rippling contours of the stone façade make it look as though Sagrada Familia is melting in the sun, while the towers are topped with brightly-colored mosaics which look like bowls of fruit. Gaudí believed that color is life, and, knowing that he would not live to see completion of his masterpiece, left colored drawings of his vision for future architects to follow. Barcelona's most emblematic architectural icon, Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família, is still under construction 128 years after it was begun...and will continue for at least another 40 years. This striking and surreal creation was conceived as Christ’s story in stone, a gigantic representation of the entire history of Christianity, and it continues to cause responses from surprise to consternation to wonder. We're not sure what to think or if we really like it. But, we want look at it and talk about it. We are very interested in your thoughts. (All photography credit: Stephanie Chambers, with the exception of the first in gallery below, an internet photo of Montserrat, which demonstrates the similarity between the natural world in which Gaudi lived and the work of his life, La Sagrada Familia)

Wall and defensive tower of medieval village of UllastretWe promised a daily blog, yet after being in Spain for seven days, we've managed only one. The region near Barcelona, requires some acclimation. While the Catalans are a part of the total Spanish identity, the area seems like a separate country in its culture, language, food and climate. After a day and a half in the city of Barcelona, we meet up with our group of twelve from Texas and shuttle to the medieval village of Ullastret, a two-hour drive northeast of Barcelona. An Ullastret castle (circa 1150) is our base for eight days. Our group has the medieval home to ourselves equipped with a chef named Ramurnes and Panchita, his toy dog who sports a glittery pink bow forming a palm tree at the top of her head. Ullstret is the name of both a charming village and the fascinating archeological site, Puig de Sant Andreu, the largest Iberian settlement in Catalonia for which it is famous. The settlement is set on a lush hillsidFront facade of medieval Romanesque-style church (ca 1100) in Ullastrete was inhabited continuously from 7BC until its mysterious abandonment in the late 17^th century. It has been carefully excavated to reveal Cyclopean (pre-Iberian) foundations and the remains of houses, cisterns and drains to carry rainwater from rooftops into stone tanks. The main square resembles those of certain Greek settlements. Here you can see the impact of the Greeks on Iberian culture.

The Catalan empire stretched from a vast portion of the southeastern part of Spain into Provence, most of the islands in the Mediterranean, the southern half of present-day Italy, into Greece and Turkey. The predecessors of the Catalans, the Iberians, were probably migrating tribes who arrived on the peninsula between 3000 and 2000 BC. Some historians now propose that the Iberians may have been descendants of the Neolithic and early Bronze Age people who earlier inhabited the coastal regions of Iberia. Their life was most certainly modified by the Greeks, and later, the Romans. What we can deduce about the Iberians is that they showed a preference for urban life and were a remarkably cultured and artistic people who liked to adorn their sculptures and vases with animals, flowers and natural objects, motifs we readily observe in the work of Dali and Gaudi (to be discussed in a later blog). In the museum above the archeological site are pieces of pottery with human figures dancing or playing musical instruments or bearing arms, many with marked Hellenistic characteristics. There are numerous inscriptions on pottery, lead plates, stones and coins. The script is not Iberian, but taken from Greek or Phoenician lettering, yet to be deciphered.

Catalan gardener tending brussel sprouts in UllastretA mile and a half from the archeological site, is the current day village of Ullastret, where our castle is located. Ullastret is a medieval precinct surrounded by three distinct lines of defensive walls. In the NW corner tower of the main square is a dungeon. A medieval Romanesque-style church and monastery (circa 1100) at the top of the hill ring bells hourly during the day. In a short week, our group finds ourselves at home in this medieval castle.

Pictured below: the archeological site of the early Catalans, our castle with a glass-covered well in the kitchen, Panchita, and Ullastret street scenes.