The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 49 No 3 November 2010

Focus : Architectural Ceramics
Above: Joan Mir6 and ceramicist Jose Llorens
Artigas, Wall of the Sun and Wall of the
Moon, 1958. Unesco Building, Paris, h.2.2m
Left: Bette and Damon Moon at Guel! Park,
Barcelona, 1966; photos: courtesy Damon Moon
If only a few modern buildings were entirely covered with ceramic tiles - and, after all, the Muslim
world had taken this technique to heights of extreme beauty and sophistication hundreds of years
before - then the fifties and the sixties also saw a rebirth of interest in other ways to marry ceramics to
architecture. One was in the use of mosaics, with perhaps the greatest example being Antonio Gaudi's
Guell Park in Barcelona, where the order and discipline or the traditional tiled ceramic surface is literally
shattered into a colourful, fragmented universe of inspired crazy-paving.
A related use of architectural ceramics was fou nd in feature walls or panels, which had the advantage
of being able to be either outside or inside a building, due to the ability of ceramics to cope with harsh
environments. The artistic partnership of the painter Joan Miro and ceramicist Jose Llorens Artigas gave
us monumental outdoor panels in the 1957/59 Wall of the Sun and the Wall of the Moon for the
Unesco Building in Paris, work so important that it led to Miro receiving a Guggenheim award in 1958.
(Ironically, these artworks are now enclosed by a building in order to protect them from the effects of
acid rain . Perhaps ceramics are not quite as durable as we think ... ) Some Australian examples of public
ceramics murals, as in Vincent McGrath's three metre by eleven metre Wall, completed in 1980 for
the Attorney General's Department in Alice Springs, are mentioned in an excellent article by Romaldo
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS NOVEMBER 2010 19