Spanish chimneys, German helmets and George Lucas

Over a hundred years ago, an architect called Antoni Gaudi delivered one of his masterpieces, the Casa Mila also known as La Pedrera. A devout Catholic and ascetic vegetarian, Gaudi was once told that he was either a fool or a genius. He reportedly replied that it meant he was an architect. His quest to create a new architectural narrative is exemplified by La Pedrera, a building of many technical innovations but one does not need an architectural background to be awed by its grand, gothic solemness. 

The tower of the Casa Mila, designed by Gaudi

And despite never having seen it you may still find it oddly familiar. For its iconic towers, marked by a series of ghostly, masked faces have been reimagined in the public consciousness in ways as dark and wild as Gaudi's own design. La Pedrera built in 1906 as a residence for a flamboyant developer, was controversial at the time, inviting both distaste and admiration. 

A few years later, across the borders in Germany, Dr. Friedrich Schwerd a technical designer for the German army realised the inefficacy of the boiled leather helmet being used in World War 1 and designed the Stalhelm or steel helmet for the newly anointed specialist soldiers called the Sturmtruppen. The helmet especially with the gas mask looks remarkably like Gaudi’s heads on the tower. The Sturmtruppen eventually evolved into the brainwashed, goose-stepping Nazi soldier in World War 2, blindly loyal to a mad man.

So design when good enough can even inspire fascists hard hats.

German Sturmtruppen

Jump ahead a few decades to the 1970s, a Californian film-maker with one hit film under his belt went on to realise his science fiction ambitions with a film that much like Hitler's Third Reich, featured an evil dictator and robotic soldiers called The Stormtroopers (English for Sturmtruppen). Like Gaudi, many thought George Lucas too had lost his mind. Famously, his fellow director Steven Spielberg was so convinced of the story that he bet Lucas's sci-fi film would make more than his own sci-fi film, Close Encounters of a Third Kind. Lucas in turn thought his friend's film would prove more successful and said whoever won the bet would get 2.5% of the more successful film's profits. 

Spielberg won the bet. Star Wars proceeded to make three times as much as his film and become the highest grossing film of all time.  

It is said there are no original stories. And perhaps there is no original design. But good design tells a story too and when it meets a good mind, the two can procreate to tell a magnificent story or two or more. Whether that story is by Gaudi or by George Lucas.

George Lucas's Stormtroopers

Then again, maybe there isn't any connection between these different narratives, of concrete, cruelty and celluloid. Or maybe there is. The imagination is such a wonderful friend to have. Blurring the lines between what is real and what is not to spin stories at your command. 

Photographs courtesy Wikimedia Commons.