My name is Gal Hart. I am an architect, a mosaicist, a partner, and a father. In between, I am also a long-distance hiker. During my first visit to Spain, in 2002, walking the Camino the Santiago, was my first exposer to Modernist architecture across Spain and especially in Barcelona.
While studying and practicing architecture in Israel, Brazil, and Italy, I was intrigued by working with materials - especially with clay and ceramics. My love story with mosaics begun about 2 decades ago, if not longer, when I was working in the ceramic studio of my older sister and her husband, back in Natanya Israel.
There I started to create tiles as well reuse of broken ceramics in mosaics work. In fact, the construction and decoration project of their exposition gallery, which used recycled materials, was my first big project.
On one of the walls includes a phrase in portugués that represents the ambient of the place. ¨A ENERGIA ESTÁ NO AR AMOR ME LEVA” which means “the energy is in the air, love take me”I arrived to Barcelona from Israel in 2016 following my partner who was accepted to the master of art studies.
Later I as well have completed my master studies in restoration and rehabilitation at La Salle Institute. I remember myself, one evening in a party, standing on a balcony in an apartment in Eixample, talking to fellow colleagues, telling them I’m eager to learn how to produce the tiles we are standing on.
At the same time, a door of opportunity has opened to the amazing place called Mosaics Marti, located in Manresa, Catalunya. The studio is a family business since 1913, and specializes in the arts and crafts of producing traditional cement tiles.
The inspiration for my projects came from two paths that joined into one road. My great passion for nature and long journeys as well as urban spaces. My experience as an architect as well as a pilgrim, family and life itself provoke creativity and ideas.
It is not a coincidence that I place my practice in the field of modernism. The style is using a lot of elements from nature and I use the technique from that time period. Barcelona is definitely a city full of inspiration, rich in modernist architecture and the works of Gaudí and his friends.
I believe that space with movement is space with life, and I aim to create an adventure with beauty, tell a story with development and surprises. With the use of elements from nature in man-made constructions, I aim to show that we can overcome the unnecessary barriers between humans and nature.
