Sacromonte cave dwellings
— rooms cut from the hill, lit by lamp.
Not only on a wall.
Sacromonte cave dwellings, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“On the Valparaíso hillside above Granada, opposite the Alhambra. The neighborhood is built into the clay slope, dwellings cut from the rock, whitewashed at the door. Sacromonte's Romani families gave Andalusia the zambra, a flamenco form danced indoors in the caves. The view across the Darro to the Alhambra carries the evening.
The place, in three passes.
Sacromonte is a hillside neighborhood at the eastern edge of Granada, in Andalusia, southern Spain. The cave dwellings are cut into the soft clay of the Valparaíso ridge, facing the Alhambra across the Darro river gorge. Romani communities settled here from the fifteenth century onward and shaped both the architecture and the flamenco tradition of the city. The Abadía del Sacromonte, an abbey at the top of the hill, was founded in 1600 after the discovery of relics in the catacombs below it.
The hillside is loose sediment rather than rock, soft enough to be carved with hand tools and stable enough to hold once whitewashed. A typical cave dwelling extends ten to twenty metres back into the slope, with a single facade door, a small terrace, and additional chambers behind a kitchen. The interior temperature holds near 18°C through both summer heat and winter cold. The 1963 flood of the Darro destroyed many caves; the Museo Cuevas del Sacromonte preserves a row of restored dwellings as a permanent exhibit.
The Camino del Sacromonte climbs from the Plaza Nueva along the Carrera del Darro and up through the Albayzín; from the Sacromonte mirador the Alhambra is at eye level. The Museo Cuevas del Sacromonte, on the upper road, charges a small admission and is open most days. Evening flamenco zambra is performed in cave venues such as the Cueva de la Rocío and the Venta El Gallo. The dance traces to the Romani wedding tradition rather than to stage flamenco.
