Sacre-Coeur Basilica
— the white the rain keeps whitening.
Not only on a wall.
“The white basilica that holds the top of Montmartre. The travertine it's built from secretes calcin when it rains, so the stone whitens with every storm rather than dulling. From the steps of the parvis the whole city opens out: the Seine, the Tour Eiffel, the slate-blue roofs reaching to the périphérique. Inside, a prayer has been held continuously since 1885. People sit in the choir at three in the morning. No one notices the hour.
Sacre-Coeur Basilica, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Sacré-Cœur sits at the summit of Montmartre, the 130-metre hill in the 18th arrondissement that is the highest natural point in Paris. The basilica was designed by Paul Abadie in a Romano-Byzantine revival style after a national competition in 1874, and built between 1875 and 1914. Pilgrims still climb the long staircase from Place Saint-Pierre, or take the funicular that has run since 1900. The dome of the Panthéon, the Tour Eiffel, and the spire of Notre-Dame are all visible from the parvis on a clear day. The basilica's own dome rises 83 metres above the church, with a panorama reaching across the Île-de-France basin.
The basilica's distinctive whiteness comes from travertine stone quarried at Château-Landon, roughly 100 kilometres south of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne. The stone contains calcite that reacts with rainwater to secrete a fine white residue called calcin, so the façade self-cleans with every storm rather than darkening with soot. Most Parisian monuments (the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Panthéon) have grown grey over a century of urban air. Sacré-Cœur is the exception. Architect Paul Abadie chose the material specifically, and his successors held to it through nearly forty years of construction.
Entry to Sacré-Cœur is free, every day from 6 in the morning to 10:30 at night. A perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has been kept since 1885, day and night, in unbroken relay. Climbing the dome costs around eight euros and runs about 300 stone steps; the view reaches to the chalk hills of the Marne valley. The clearest air is the hour before sunrise, before the city's traffic warms the basin. Tour groups arrive after eleven, and the parvis fills through the afternoon. The last hour before closing returns the quiet.