Trompe l’oeil architecture

Three of the windows on this facade are illusions ✨

I believe I took this in Paris but these painted architectural elements are quite common in Italy, completing architectural symmetries and proportions where the building fails to do so. Ah, the aspirational order of classical architecture!

And the chaotic tags and throwies occupying the same space, messing with these aspirations! 😍

Wouldn’t it be more pleasing, you say, to respect that hard-laboured order, and be surrounded by beautiful harmonious facades (as illusory as they may be)?

Maybe, but here’s the trick: occupied surfaces are signs of healthy cities. They are true reflections of divergent aspirations. They are evidence of spatial engagement. They make spaces better, more inclusive, co-produced, editable.

The value of beauty is overrated.