Barcelona Photoblog: Art Nouveau Mosaics: The Trencadis Technique

April 08, 2013

Art Nouveau Mosaics: The Trencadis Technique

Trencadis mosaic detail at Serpentine bench in Park Guell, Barcelona

Parc Güell, that amazing jewel of Art Nouveau, where Gaudi left his unmistakable legacy in spite of being part of a housing project that was bound to fail, is a vast green area where your eyes are immediately seduced by curious shapes, impossible lines, incredible designs and innovative ideas. Such is the case of the mosaic benches around the square facing the entrance to the park. Serpentine benches waving around the central arena, feature spectacular combinations of colorful shards of mosaic that apparently at first sight do not make any sense but that are part of an intelligent meaningful composition, a sort of magic snake showing off her shiny scales on top the 86 Doric columns that hold the square. The scales are really thousands of little shards, fragments of mosaic carefully assembled to create a sort of mural in which chaos generates beauty and such technique is called trencadis.
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