BARCELONA — The grand historical scope of ceramics used in building is on view at the Museu del Disseny de Barcelona with Brick by Brick: Ceramics Applied to Architecture (September 15, 2016 – January 29, 2017).
Above image: From the Jaume Pujol Bausis & Sons ceramics factory, ca. 1900. Photograph by Guillermo Fernández-Huerta.
The show features a selection of three hundred ceramic pieces applied in architecture, from Antiquity to the present. The works are from both the Museum’s own collections and from numerous European museums.
Babylon (now Iraq) lion relief, ca. 575 BCE. From Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Photograph by Olaf M. Teßmer. Click to see a larger image.
Brick by Brick: Ceramics Applied to Architecture is the first exhibition devoted to the uses, functions, symbolism and aesthetics of this type of ceramic, with works from the ancient world to the present, particularly from the Mediterranean area, including the Middle East.
In this exhibition, the Museu del Disseny aims to highlight the importance and the continuing use of ceramic in architecture, as well as focusing on both long-standing traditions and innovation in this field over the course of the millennia.
Model of a tower, Syria, Late Bronze Age 13th -12th centuries BCE. Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités orientales, Paris. Photograph by Christian Larrieu
Flooring tile from 14th Century Valencia. Photograph by Guillem Fernández-Huerta.
Y-Shapewater terracotta conduit from Athens, ca. 525-500 BCE
Curated by the architect Pedro Azara, the show will open simultaneously with the Forty-Seventh Congress of the International Academy of Ceramics in Barcelona, an event that will be hosted in the Disseny Hub Barcelona building, which also houses the Museum itself.
Parallel to the exhibition, moreover, the Museum will stage a program of activities organized in cooperation with the Ceramics Chair of the International University of Catalonia.
Text (edited) and photographs courtesy of Museu del Disseny de Barcelona.
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Antefix with the head of goddess Juna Sospita from early 5th Century Rome
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