A Spanish Artist Transforms an Old Church Into a “Sistine Chapel” of Skateboarding

Desacralized church conversions around the world have led to some inspired architectural settings for homes, bars, and nightclubs—and now a bold, colorful indoor skate park in Spain.

Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel transformed the former Santa Barbara Church in Llanera, Spain, into La Iglesia Skate, with contemporary geometric graphics and painted figures in a psychedelic palette that are in stark contrast with the church’s ecclesiastical bones. The artist painted the church, originally built in 1912 before it fell out of use at the end of the Spanish Civil War, during a week in late November, and it opened to the public in December.

The Madrid-based artist, who has painted street murals and installations as far and wide as Tennessee and Kiev, said in a video interview that the work is his most important to date, calling it his “personal Sistine Chapel.”

You can see more of Okuda San Miguel’s work here. Or watch the making of video below (in Spanish) to see the art in progress and get a glimpse of the church-as-skate-park in action.