The Beehive Metaphor: From Gaudí to Le Corbusier by Juan Antonio
Ramírez, Reaktion, £15.95, ISBN 1861890567
SPANISH art historian Juan Antonio Ramírez reckons he is probably
obsessed by bees. He blames his father, who stumbled across a book on
bee-keeping soon after the Spanish Civil War and was never the same again. “My
father became a convert to movable-frame or rational apiculture, devoting
himself totally to dreams of indubitable wealth.” Alas, his father’s empire
quickly crumbled, leaving the family bankrupt. The costly hives, sold cheap,
later turned up as props in Victor Erice’s 1973 film The Spirit of…
