Portuguese Tiles

Talking about the devil we have a very interesting tradition here in Brazil – Houses about to be demolish normally have a visit from special professionals that are able do dismantle the tiles in order to resell it as reposition tiles for people who still live in old places.

They call it “tiles cemeteries” where are also places where modern people can find very inspirational graphic art, the kind of stuff you can´t find online.

I made a special piece about it in my weblog, playing a regular Indiana Jones in this dusty wharehouses.

Well, it´s a portuguese written article, but at least you can have a look at the pictures:

http://www.reinoselvagem.com.br/arqueologia-de-azulejos/

Cheers,

Coronel “Von” Lehmann

Dear Jane,

I bought some to create a tiled top for a dinning table with my girl, in fact this is the best design couple´s therapy I ever had: Seh was looking for 70´s florals and I got a bunch of geometric patters from the 60´s. Together we made a beatuful mirrored composition.

The thing is that those tiles are a little bit more expensive than the ones we have nowadays, but they still damn cheap because they are second hand. Plenty of cool bars here in Sao Paulo are taking advantage of that to create beautiful (sort of) random compositions on their walls.

Its a petty you cant read portuguese, because all of that is written there. Do you know that are two names for tiles in portuguese? Azul means blue, and all the traditional pottery and tiles from portugal are blue. People should call it ladrilho, that is the generic name with no blue connection, but in Brazil most people call it azulejo anyway, doesnt matter the color.

🙂

Cheers,

Coronel “Von” Lehmann