MOSAICS IN BARCELONA

Shannon AndersonSPN 102-U1 Summer 2015Synthesis: Module 6

Who created mosaics in Barcelona?

• Antoni Gaudi was a very talented architect from Barcelona

• He is known for many beautiful structures throughout the city

• One of his creations is a mosaic park called Park Güell

• Park construction began in 1900 and was completed in 1914

• This is the park enterance

More Park Güell mosaics

• Guests are surrounded by beautiful and intricately placed tiles on the walls that flank the white tiled staircase as they enter the park

• Walking up the staircase visitors are greeted by a beautiful mosaic dragon

Banc de Trencadis• The bench mimics a serpent

and surrounds a paved terrace with terrific views of the city and the Mediterranean Sea

• “Trencadis” is the process of using scrap tiles to create mosaics

• It has been reported that while creating the bench, Gaudi had a workman sit in the soft plaster unclothed from the waist down to get an accurate anatomical curve

Two more views of the Banc de Trencadis

Inspiration to make my own mosaic

• After completing my research and viewing all of the beautiful mosaics Gaudi created, I decided I would make my own mosaic

• To begin the process, I visited the local Goodwill and purchased bright colorful breakables!

Finding an object to use

• Next, I had to find a surface to work with

• I wanted it to be functional so I could use it in my home after it was completed

• I went to Michaels craft store looking for a piece of raw material that would work

• I found an item that I wanted to use as a mailbox on my counter

Let the fun of smashing begin…

The task of finding the right pieces…

• I wanted to spell MAIL using bright blue glass pieces

• It was challenging to find pieces that would work for the size of the box

• Once I found the pieces, I needed to glue all of them down

I found all the pieces I needed

• After spelling out MAIL, I needed to start filling in the area surrounding it

• There were some small areas, I hoped that I could find pieces to fit

Time to fill in the rest of the area

• Things progressed nicely• I had a variety of broken

glass in the bucket• I started doing a “dry run”

to make sure I could find pieces to fit in certain areas

• Once I had a section the way I liked it, I would begin to hot glue the pieces down

Only a few more pieces to go

• I lucked out by having a variety of sizes to choose from to fill in a majority of the space

• The challenge came at the end to find some smaller pieces to fill in the last few spaces

• I ended up having to smash a few pieces in the bucket into smaller pieces

I’m almost finished!• I was able to find the last few

small pieces needed to fill in all the spaces

• I let the mailbox sit on the table to dry over night

• The next day I poured a clear product over the entire piece to seal everything

• I wanted to keep all pieces in place and prevent anyone from getting cut by the glass when reaching in for the mail

I love the final product!