Sucre
— — a city kept white by ordinance.
Not only on a wall.
“The constitutional capital of Bolivia sits at twenty-eight hundred metres, walls washed white twice a year by city law. Plaza 25 de Mayo holds the Casa de la Libertad, where the republic was declared in 1825. Students from the old university spill into cafés in the late afternoon. The light here is thin and clean.
Sucre, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia and the seat of the Supreme Court, set in the Chuquisaca highlands at roughly 2,810 metres. Founded in 1538 as La Plata de la Nueva Toledo, it was renamed for independence leader Antonio José de Sucre in 1839. The historic core has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1991, recognised for its preserved sixteenth and seventeenth century religious architecture. The city sits about 420 kilometres southeast of La Paz, the administrative capital, reached by a daily flight or an overnight bus across the Altiplano.
The whitewash is required by municipal ordinance, refreshed annually before each Bolivian independence day on August 6. The Casa de la Libertad on Plaza 25 de Mayo holds the original signed Act of Independence from 1825, kept in the chapel where the founding congress met. Two blocks west, the Metropolitan Cathedral was completed in 1712, its bell tower rebuilt twice after seismic damage. The Convent of San Felipe Neri, founded in 1795, lets visitors walk its tile roof for a view across the white grid of the old town.
At 2,810 metres, Sucre sits low enough that altitude rarely troubles arriving travellers, especially those who flew in from La Paz at 3,640 metres. Mornings are dry and bright most of the year; the rainy season runs December through March, when afternoon thunderstorms roll in from the eastern lowlands. Average daytime temperatures hold between 18 and 24°C across the year, one reason colonial Spaniards called it the City of Four Names (also Charcas, Chuquisaca, and La Plata) and made it their preferred high seat in Upper Peru.