Architectural notebook · Oriol Valls

Privacy: a plain-language GDPR notice

How this independent architectural notebook handles server logs, local assets and visitor rights under European GDPR.

This site is designed to be read without creating an account or submitting personal information. Pages, photographs, styles and icons are served locally. There are no advertising pixels, social-media trackers or third-party analytics scripts embedded in the editorial pages. Like most web servers, ours can temporarily record an IP address, request time, requested path and browser information for security and troubleshooting.

We do not use those technical logs to build personal profiles. They are retained only as long as reasonably needed to prevent abuse, diagnose failures and maintain the website. No payment data belongs on this white site, and visitors should never send card details through any editorial correspondence channel.

How some visitors found this page

Some readers arrive after seeing an advertisement, a search result or a shared link. That does not create a commercial relationship with the basilica foundation or with this notebook. Advertising and search platforms may have their own privacy practices, but this site does not receive your advertising account details. A referral address can appear in technical logs when a browser supplies it.

Under the European General Data Protection Regulation, you may have rights of access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection and portability concerning personal data held about you. Because the notebook avoids accounts and forms, most visits produce only limited server records. An unusually specific request may require enough information to locate the relevant technical log entry.

The legal basis for essential logging is the legitimate interest in operating a secure website. Any longer-term editorial correspondence would be handled according to the purpose for which it was supplied. This notice should be read alongside the terms. Nothing here asks you to surrender a statutory right, and nothing describes a sale of personal data.

If you follow an external advertisement to this notebook, the platform that displayed it may use cookies or similar technologies under its own policy. Those technologies are not controlled by this website. On our pages, the practical emphasis is different: local assets, no embedded social trackers and no account requirement. You can also use ordinary browser controls to limit stored data without preventing the text and photographs from loading.

A note on using these pages: the observations are written for general readers rather than as a technical conservation manual. Conditions can change with weather, restoration work and the daily life of the building. That is why I prefer describing a method of looking to promising a fixed spectacle. Stand still, compare one detail with its neighbour, and let the structure explain itself. If staff give a direction on the day, follow it. If your own experience differs from a note here, treat that as useful new evidence rather than a failure of the visit. An independent notebook should make attention easier, not turn architecture into a rigid script.