Word: mosaic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...motto might be, "Give us your women, your gays, your (fill in your oppression here)." Sometimes you've got to be proud of a country that proudly builds its own gorgeous mosaic...
...well prepared for the Alpine chill. His basic garment was an unlined fur robe made of patches of deer, chamois and ibex skin. Though badly repaired at many points, the robe had been cleverly whipstitched together with threads of sinew or plant fiber, in what appears to be a mosaic-like pattern, belying the popular image of cavemen in crude skins. "The person who made the clothes initially was obviously skilled. This indicates that the Iceman was in some way integrated into a community," says prehistorian Egg, who is restoring the clothes at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz...
...that of a great sculptor -- witness the totemic chimneys and ventilators on the Casa Mila and the Palau Guell -- and a remarkable painter too: the facade of Casa Batllo, on the opposite side of Gracia, is as atmospheric as a Monet, sparkling with drifts of blue and green mosaic. Nor should one miss the iron dragon gate of the Finca Guell, or the crypt of the Colonia Guell -- the chapel of an industrial community for weavers at Santa Coloma de Cervello, half an hour's drive from Barcelona -- or the Parc Guell, with its ravishing Hansel-and-Gretel pavilions...
...Catalunya, to % design what may be the most extreme Art Nouveau building in Europe. This is the Palau de la Musica Catalana (1905-08). It was built for the Orfeo Catala, a choral-music society. Pablo Casals and Montserrat Caballe, both Catalans, began their careers here. From the mosaic-sheathed ticket office to the stupendous inverted bell of a stained-glass skylight in the auditorium, from the sculpted Valkyries riding across the proscenium arch to the encrustations of ceramic roses (each the size of a cabbage) on the ceiling, it takes decor beyond congestion; and yet, because it is also...
...cool water gardens, the arcaded patios, the fractal-like proliferation of detail in the stucco domes, the mind-defeating intricacy of the mosaics with their cordons de la eternidad (literally, "ribbons of eternity") interlacing in continuous patterns: such things cannot be crated, shipped across the Atlantic and put in a museum. One fragment of a 14th century mosaic dado from the Alhambra, however beautiful, is only a detail and cannot convey the overwhelming effect of the patterning on the palace's actual walls. Thus, although this exhibition looks fine inside the pyramid of the Met's Lehman Pavilion...