Tiles of Lisbon

Lisbon is a great city. I found it to be unassumingly beautiful. It wasn’t trying hard, it’s not wanting to be any more than it is, it’s just pretty. One thing that really captured me in the beauty of Lisbon was the tiles. So many beautifully painted tiles all over the place. The tiles scaled the walls of houses, churches, city squares, they were amazing.

I was the annoying one in our group who would point out every new tile display we walked by. I would stop for a while, enjoy the design and take a photo. Well, who’s laughing now?…me, it’s always me, I’m always laughing. Anyway, I took so many photos of blimin’ tiles that I can make a blog post purely about tiles.

So after being completely fascinated by the tiles in Lisbon but not really knowing any history or the purpose behind the tiles. So, I did a little research.

• The tiles are called Azulejos (pronounced a-zu-la-jos), which was originally an Arabic word meaning “polished stone”.
• Azulejos in Portugal, date back as far as the 13th century when the Iberian peninsula was under the Moorish rule.
• A lot of the birds and leaves in the designs are Arabic-inspired from these Moorish days.

Here are some of my favourite tiles from around Lisbon:

• Originally the tiles were simple geometric shapes of neutral colouring. Until King Manual I went to Spain during the 15th century, then the designs changed. He was inspired by their intricate Spanish designs and brought these artistic ideas back to Portugal. Soon the beautiful designs were taken further into storytelling murals.
• Different to other countries where tiles are purely a decoration, in Portugal, the tiles are used as part of the construction materials and the decoration aspect is an added bonus.

• In the early 20th century the tiles began to fall out of fashion in richer circles and were known more among the poorer citizens.
• In the 1950s it sprung back into fashion as they began to tile underground stations for easy maintenance and to make them feel less separate to the outside world. Now they are throughout all Portuguese cities, towns and villages, on public and private buildings, churches, street signs, town squares and train stations.

Close-ups

As some of the tiles were high up on houses it was difficult to see the details of the designs. Here are some tiles that were more “Ash-height” to assist with photographing the finer details.

I don’t know if this is a really exciting post for people or not, but I definitely found the tiles to be fascinating and very pretty.

References:

http://www.golisbon.com/culture/azulejos.html

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20140515-the-story-behind-lisbons-beauty