The golden color puts us crazy, to such an extent, that it are already many buildings that have it, in addition built in this century.

All started a December 20, in the social networks (of course), the innocent actors of the game could not have imagined never the media coverage which many academics would give in radios and televisions around the globe, and they would point to the phenomenon as the «Golden Selfie» effect. Isaac had been several years working as a nurse in France, still had many ties with his beloved land, but he had adapted well to Lyon, city where worked as a nurse.

That day, he woke up early (as always) to go to work, was living in a spectacular complex of buildings called «Le Monolithe», whose surface on ground covers the nearly 9,000 square meters and develops a total of 32,000 built square meters. The wonderful thing about the resort is its multifunction, with offices, retail, underground car parks, fully adapted in property and rental housing, where, in addition, the 80 percent of its energy needs are produced by renewable energy sources.

The complex, built in 2010, was designed by five studies of architecture, and develops in its part longitudinal an incredible park inside. Isaac got into the car when, suddenly, felt the urge to send a photo to his couple. Already outside, he was stood opposite the building designed by the firm of architecture ECDPM, a fantastic and light composition based on gold color metal panels, smiling made a selfie and climbed it to networks with a funny slogan: «Love, you have a heart of gold».

The image arrived to his couple, Nagore, who was about to use her vehicle to go to work in one of the best hotels of the world, Marqués del Riscal, quickly, planned the reply ideal. When arrived at the undulating building, the unique hotel designed by famous architect Frank Gehry (yes, that of the Bilbao Guggenheim) stood with her backs to it and showed her best smile to the camera, press the button and wrote a few words: «I have an imagination of gold».

The hotel was inaugurated in 2006 and Nagore began working on it in 2011, she was very happy there, and looked forward to have the luxury to be able to glimpse the great work of Gehry almost every day. Whimsical and huge waves of titanium wrapped the building in shades of pink, gold and silver, in reference to the wine of the bodegas Marqués de Riscal. The photo traveled by the digital media, and elsewhere in the world, someone decided to continue with the «game».

 

This time it was a friend of the couple (Julia) who was on vacation in the District of Erding, Germany, who continued with the gold chain. When see photos of Nagore and Isaac, she recalled that close to her residence he had seen a brilliant building, the Museum of Erding, an old property that had appended a new volume covered by copper shingles treated for not aging. The designers, Walbrunn Architekten, had done everything possible to not go unnoticed (and they were getting this). The construction was completed in 2012 and Julia had no qualms in to pose for the media with the following slogan: «the culture is gold!»

 

Then was internationalized the «affair», when a German named Redmond, resident in Melbourne, the University City par excellence, who had no relation to the Spaniards, embarked on the adventure with a spectacular selfie in the new building of Deakin University, where he was studying. The building, designed by Woods Bagot and completed in 2014, represents two volumes that rising expectant, to give greater sense of fearlessness, the facades hide behind vertical slats colour silver and gold (of course). In the network, the German wrote: «here, looking for gold in Australia».

At this point, it was almost impossible to find out who woud be the next person in to portray a gold-colored building. Many selfies were made in front of the outlandish building, but bold, designed by Knowspace for the courthouse of St. Pölten, in Austria, whose construction was completed in 2011. An imposing volume with holes of different dimensions in a facade of aluminum and copper. At the foot of the photos, comments like: «The Justice is worth gold» or «the Justice is covered with gold», for all the tastes.

 

Another package of images were distributed by means from the United Kingdom, in particular, many people posed in front of The Hive complex, in Worcester. In 2012, the architects Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, put their best intentions creating this wonderful University Library which houses, in addition, of the County archive, a Museum of local history and a residence for experts. A shell of copper scales protects the complex and, as a reference to the past, the buildings culminate simulating industrial chimneys that provide light and ventilation (great). The comment more repeated in those networks was: «look! we have built some factories of gold for leaving of Europe!»

 

One of the most «popular» buildings is in Paris (Le France), in the District of Boulogne-Billancourt, the name says it all, the Golden Cube was designed by Hamonic + Masson and is a student residence with 156 apartments. It is recent creation since its construction was completed last two years (2015), and shows a funny composition of cubes nuanced by die-cut sheets and recesses giving life to the individual terraces. The networks were filled with Parisians that smiling wrote phrases like: «Welcome to the Gold residence of King Midas» or «who has stolen my bucket of gold?»

In Italy, the citizens didn’t want to be left out, presuming of buildings glowing, hundreds of Italians and tourists came to the Centre of art of the Prada Foundation in Milan to portray themselves with one of the most striking works by Rem Koolhaas (of course). The work of rehabilitation of a former distillery is giving way to one of the cultural centers more modern and daring of the country, of the brand Prada, obviously. One of the buildings has been coated with gold of 24 carats… so phrases as: «Italy knows to dress of gold» or «this building is worth its weight in gold» were very common in the networks.

The press found a vein of gold in this explosion of joy, headlines as «Attack of the gold rush» or «Living a golden age?» were reproduced by all over the world. Isaac and Nagore had made happy to many people, they never could to have imagine this, did interviews in the New York Times of the United States or the Yomiuri Shimbun of Japan (the most read newspaper in the world), but, when it passed the boom, only they had the great joy of having started the «Golden Selfie», the networks have this things.