Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family
— — a forest of stone reaching for light.
Not only on a wall.
“Approach from Carrer de Mallorca and the towers come up like cypresses cut from sandstone. Antoni Gaudí worked on the basilica for forty-three years and is buried in the crypt. The light through the eastern apse turns the nave the colour of new leaves in the morning, and amber by late afternoon. Crews still climb the scaffolds. — from the studio
Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family, 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.
The Basilica of the Holy Family stands in Barcelona's Eixample district, the grid of octagonal blocks laid out by Ildefons Cerdà in the 1860s. Construction began in 1882 under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar; Antoni Gaudí took over the following year and devoted the rest of his life to the design. Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the basilica in 2010 and declared it a minor basilica. The structure is funded entirely by private donations and ticket sales, and the central Tower of Jesus Christ is rising toward a planned height of 172.5 metres.
The basilica is a study in geometry made structural. Gaudí used hyperboloids, paraboloids, and helicoids to translate forms he found in nature, branches, bones, and seashells, into stone that carries its own weight without flying buttresses. The Passion façade, by sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs, is cut in angular planes that contrast with the older Nativity façade's biomorphic foliage. Eighteen towers are planned in total: twelve for the apostles, four for the evangelists, one for Mary, and the tallest for Christ.
Gaudí oriented the Nativity façade and apse to catch first light and placed the Passion side to take the late sun. Stained glass by Joan Vila-Grau washes the nave in greens and blues at sunrise and oranges and reds by mid-afternoon, so the interior shifts hour by hour like a slow tide. The columns branch overhead into a stone canopy that diffuses the light further, an effect Gaudí compared to a forest. The basilica receives over four million visitors a year.