The Spanish tile industry is commemorating this historic legacy by taking part in important restorations of some of the great master's creations and finishing some of his unfinished projects. Güell Park, Casa Vicens and the Sagrada Familia, all in Barcelona, are just a few.

Gaudí's work
Modernist architects were much given to using ceramic tiles but the unprecedented structural systems Gaudí devised in order to be able to incorporate both natural and glazed tiles into his creations set him apart from the rest.

The Catalan architect used tiles in the structural as well as the decorative parts of his buildings. As well as turning ceramic tiles into a new form of decorative expression, he used clay bricks in the construction of his buildings.

The reason Gaudí used this material is that his structural system was based on simple observation of natural physiology in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms. Gaudí observed that nature created structures that are functionally perfect and decorative forms of indisputable aesthetic beauty. He thought that one could achieve beauty through seeking functionality.

He concluded that the geometry of nature is often based on twisted surfaces, or rather curves in space, but that these are comprised of straight lines, frequently found in plants, people and mountains. All these natural forms were of course polychromatic, displaying all sorts of brilliant colours.

Thus in the vaults made of flat clay bricks that he built he created structures with regulated surfaces. He then decorated these with glazed ceramic tiles that, as well as giving colour as they reflect light, also produce iridescence.

Glazed ceramic in Gaudí 's architecture
Gaudí 's architecture is characterised by colour. The master used to say that colour is the sign of life. It is for this reason that all of his architecture is intensely chromatic. Gaudí understood that colour is the effect of reflection of light on objects but that light has another property too: it is refractive. In other words, when rays of light hit a shiny surface, or water, the effect of refraction occurs causing brilliance or iridescence.

This led Gaudí to use glazed ceramic, which provided very bright colours as well as allowing him to incorporate iridescence. He then took his three-dimensional twisted surfaces and covered them with ceramic tiles.

Finding of course that it was impossible to lay tiles on a curved surface, Gaudí responded by coming up with one of his major inventions: "trencadís". He asked for the tiles to be broken and, with the pieces, created mosaic that was Byzantine in style yet had one peculiarity: it mixed fragments from different pieces, thereby achieving the surprising effect of a new, more lively and interesting composition completely unrelated to the original tiles.

Tau Cerámica helps restoration of Casa Vicens
Casa Vicens (1878-1880) was the first house Gaudí built. The commission came from Señor Manuel Vicens i Montaner, a Barcelona stockbroker once thought, incorrectly, to have been a potter. Since 1899 Casa Vicens has belonged to the Jover family and they have endeavoured to maintain it in good condition, respecting Gaudí's design, ever since.

Their concern to preserve the house led them to undertake the current work to restore the damage done by the passage of time. The present owner, D.ª Fabiola Jover de Herrero, says she was surprised "at how easy the hardest part of the job was: obtaining the ceramic material we needed to replace the tiles that had come off the outside walls". Thanks to Tau Cerámica, though, "we have done a good job of restoring them - with tiles made at the dawn of the 21st century that are indistinguishable from those made in the 19th. After undertaking an extremely detailed study of pigments, materials and Tau made the tiles by hand using techniques that are more than 100 years old". Tau Cerámica not only made the tiles but part-sponsored the project as well.

Nowadays Casa Vicens is surrounded by high buildings but still retains the charm that is particular to this very first of Gaudí's creations.

Adex in Güell Park
Güell Park (1900-1914), declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1984, is perhaps the most bizarre of the many commissions undertaken by Gaudí for Eusebio Güell.

The concept of the park was to create a "garden city" like those that were being built in Britain, for the wealthy bourgeoisie of Barcelona. Its total respect for the natural environment and the recycling involved in creating the majority of the mosaics in the park (which were made from local factory waste and rejects) make Parque Güell the best example of organic urban development. All over the park there are examples of trencadís and structures made using flat bricks.

The Spanish tile manufacturer Adex was chosen to supply the ceramic to replace the trencadís. The slow, costly restoration work began in 1985. For Adex Managing Director, Vicente García Piñón, "it was a tremendous challenge to take on such a responsibility but I was also captivated by the thought of being able to be part of a project of this magnitude. You have to be aware that when the park was created the tiles used were of course made at that time. Also, they came from different factories and were then all mixed up. So it was in a sense a huge, complicated jigsaw puzzle we had to put back together again."

San Genís working on the construction of the Sagrada Familia
The Expiatory Church of the Sagrada Familia was begun in 1882 but, because of the magnitude of the project there are many parts of it that remain unfinished. San Genís, a Spanish tile manufacturer, is involved in the construction work, supplying glazed and unglazed ceramic tiles.

This unfinished building is not just of religious significance but can be looked upon as the "handbook to Gaudí" because the way he built is most clearly explained here. All the structural solutions he had studied and proven time and again in his lifetime's work he applied here.

Gaudí had learned much by observing nature and the forms found in nature and he tried, simply, to imitate them. The structure of the church is based on leaning columns whose upper parts divide off into a profusion of tree-like branches that support small parts of parabolic arches, giving the appearance of a woodland. Illustrations left by Gaudí show how colourful the building was to be, in line with his tenet that colour is life.