A Touch of Wealth

For today’s fun filled excursion, we embraced our inner tourist and visited both the Eiffel Tower and the Opera Garnier.  Although visiting the Tower was a fun experience and would make for an overall amazing Lego build, I’ll save that for later in the week (July 14th).

Instead of talking about the Tower and all the fun little details and history today, I decided to discuss the architecture and power behind the Opera Garnier, a building that is probably my new favorite place in Paris. I LOVE people watching, and boy did Charles Garnier deliver when constructing a building made for the rich and powerful to people watch their fellow friends and colleagues.  The part I found most interesting and appealing to me were the marble overlooks all throughout the building, allowing for the rich to look down and see who is doing what.

I chose to display these marble railings on this post’s mosaic, which is a very odd choice on paper given how much detail went into the rest of the building, but I believe these add to the overall flare and imagery of the building, from the interior. The whole purpose of the building was to be a rich person’s people watching dream, a fact made clear by the overlooks designed for the opera house. The bright colors of the gold and coral marble, contrasting the darker hues of the tannish blue and sand green balusters allow for anyone who looks at the overlook to think “Now THAT is a rich person.” Seeing how the rich used to live got me thinking I fully understand all the drama that could arise from having a building set up like this and I am HERE for it.

I hope one day to be rich enough to afford not just one color of marble, but four different shades to display my wealth, seems like an obtainable goal in life, the perfect people watching dream worked into the finer details and architecture of the Opera.