Building love

I have a fascination with coloured glass panels in residential buildings.  Something about them reminds me of libraries and old abandoned industrial buildings with the windows painted in, though I couldn't tell you if that's the beginning or the end of my fascination.  Or even a great part of it at all.  I do love them though.  Maybe it's an echo of possibility in these buildings more than in others that strikes me .

More so than anything else, I always wonder what people were thinking when they put panels like these into a building.  Not in a 'Are you mad?' way, obviously.  But it's quite a specific choice, in my mind.  Brick, block, board and batten, weatherboard, corrugated iron, concrete, even expanses of clear glass ... any of them, and any combinations of them often, can be used to amazing and admirable effect but for whatever reason they just don't provoke the same immediate reaction in me.  

Did someone just want coloured panels?  Do they have a vision for the future of the building? What is it?  Are they making a statement about the environment in which it will sit for many years to come? Is it pure fun?  Did someone have too many beers and no one looked at the design again before it went to the next stage?  I can't imagine it's a cheap materials option, so it really seems like there needs to be a why.  On this scale, anyway. 

Don't even get me started on how you'd choose your colours without spontaneously combusting.

I think too, for me (you might be quite different or not give a toss altogether) one of my favourite aspects, particularly in relation to the house below, is that unlike many other houses that give you some level of indication of what may be inside, even down to furnishings, you are left totally guessing.  There are a few things that are unlikely (country chic), but still not an impossibility.

So, I definitely love it, but find it drives me just a little nuts.  Thankfully my happy place has plenty of room for that.