Azulejos – our very first tour of Porto introduced us to the blue tiles, which are probably widespread in Portugal and Spain as well.

They have been arranged in numerous public monuments and buildings, house facades and churches, but also on interior walls, often forming artistic murals. We often noticed ancient floral, bird, and ship motifs on the tiled surfaces, motifs we also encountered in Asia Minor.

Antoni Gaudi gives azulejos a new lease of life

Wall coverings made of the so-called azulejos traditionally feature ornaments from Islamic art, which takes us back to history once again, as Spain and Portugal were once ruled by the Moors.

To this day, architecture uses azulejos as a decorative element – ​​for example, the interiors of churches, monasteries, and palaces are often covered over large areas.

As in other art forms, tile motifs have become fashion trends; One variation was the azulejos de tapete, stone oriental carpets for the walls.

In the 19th century, the azulejos at least "left" the interiors and enlivened the cityscape as facades.

In a new heyday, the azulejos went through historicism and Art Nouveau, with Antoni Gaudí returning to mosaics.

After the great earthquake of 1755, which destroyed a significant part of Lisbon, azulejos were also quicker and cheaper to obtain than bricks.

Just a few hundred meters after leaving our accommodation, we came across an example of these blue tiles:

the exterior facade of a church was almost completely covered with azujelos, which not only served to decorate the facade but also provided protection from the elements and, at the same time, told stories about fables or, quite simply, the everyday lives of the residents.

Azulejo Production in Portugal

The production technique was adopted by local artisans from the Moors, who had ruled the region since the 8th century, and continuously developed further.

In the 12th/13th centuries, the center of production of the Azulejos was Andalusia, especially Granada. In the 14th century, Valencia was famous for its azulejos. From around the 16th/17th centuries, Portugal even became the main producer of the blue tiles.

Really old tiles can be identified by three almost fingernail-sized chips of glaze, which are the result of the chipping off of small ceramic tripods that, while keeping the stacked tiles separate during the firing process, bonded to the glaze. In later times – from around the 16th century onwards – the individual tiles were fired in square holders made of unglazed clay, which could easily be stacked and reused multiple times.

The Azujelos were only fired in a single colour; Subsequently, the abstract-geometric – essentially infinite – ornaments (often star motifs) were assembled from small pieces cut to size with pliers.

These first motifs of this kind mostly date back to the Moorish period, which had established itself in the south of the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th to the 15th century.

To reduce the enormously high costs of artisans, this technique was replaced as early as the 11th century by the cuerda seca technique, in which greased cords were placed in incised recesses, thus keeping the coloured glazes separate during the firing process.

The wall tiles could thus be moved as a whole; these techniques persisted even after the Christian Reconquista.

In the 16th century, the traditional skills of ceramic firers encountered new European majolica techniques and the clients' desire for pictorial representations.

Subsequently, entire pictorial cycles were painted and fired on tiles.

They initially served sacred purposes, but very quickly found their way into royal and aristocratic palaces. Wealthy citizens – especially in the Netherlands – could also afford such items, and thus the famous Delft tiles were created.

The blue azulejos of Portugal can therefore be considered a characteristic feature of Portuguese architecture and culture, named after the Arabic word for "small polished stone."

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