Trencadís (from Catalan — “broken,” “fragmented”) is a “broken” mosaic technique. Ornaments and patterns are assembled from fragments of shattered ceramics, porcelain, and glass. The tesserae are not made to fit a specific design in advance: colours, half-tones, and shapes are chosen from a ready set of “shards.”
The creator of the trencadís technique is the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. In his work on the Güell estate, he dealt with curved, irregular surfaces. To decorate them, he chose not to use intact ceramic tiles, but shards of varying sizes. This made it possible to clad architectural objects of the most complex forms with ceramic elements. The broken ceramics Gaudí collected from factories and city streets not only adorned Barcelona’s architecture but also brought the architect worldwide renown.
You can create a Gaudí-inspired piece on 28 March at 18:00 at the Museum of Florentine Mosaic. The trencadís workshop will be led by artist Natalia Novikova. Participants will craft flowers and horseshoes—symbols of spring and good luck—using fragments of ceramic and porcelain tableware. Visitors will also be able to explore the museum galleries and enjoy coffee surrounded by unique mosaic works.
Artist Natalia Novikova creates original pieces from glass and smalto, and gives a second life to old tableware by using its fragments for mosaics. Her practice draws on fantastical and fairy-tale imagery, and she also uses neural networks to generate unusual sketches.
Registration: send a direct message to our VKontakte group.
