«A true artist manages to make beauty emerge from the rubble itself.»
(Reference to the chimneys of the Palau Güell, La Vanguardia, 1890)
Fragmented ceramics have become an identifying element of Gaudí’s work. The historical itinerary of this architectural “skin” began in the Les Corts Pavilions, where pottery was used in fragments for the first time. In previous constructions, Casa Vicens in Barcelona (1883-1888) and El Capricho in Comillas (1883-1885), an orderly grid of ceramic tiles on the facing of the brick wall still prevailed.
From the roofs of the Güell Pavilions (1887) to the final construction, the Sagrada Família (1926), the trencadís was transformed by incorporating different materials that were either unusual or made from recycled rubble. This became the colour of the undulating forms in Gaudi’s architecture.