How Those Colorful Azulejo Tiles Are Made
A tradition dating back centuries survives in Portugal as artists and companies fill private and public commissions for the celebrated designs.
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There are some crafts that Portugal is especially known for: pavements and plazas patterned with black and white stones, and azulejos, often referred to as tiles, that cover buildings, often in seas of blue and white.
Such artistry is being honored this year during the Journées Européennes des Métiers d’Art, or European Crafts Days, from today through April 7, with programs that give an inside look at how the work is done. Portugal’s artisanal heritage will be celebrated on April 7 when ateliers around the country devoted to woodwork, weaving, jewelry, bookbinding and painting tiles will open their doors to the public.
The facade of the old Viúva Lamego factory, in the Intendente neighborhood of Lisbon.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
Be careful, though, if speaking with Alexandre Pais, director of the Museu Nacional do Azulejo in Lisbon.
“Azulejos have been around more than 500 years,” Dr. Pais said. “They are always changing, always adapting.” To prove his point he singled out a blue and white mural on the wall of Mickey Mouse “from Walt Disney’s office in Lisbon.” Whether it’s the subject matter, the colors or the materials used, azulejos keep pace with the times.
Azulejos first came to Portugal from Spain and Arab countries, and the name “is an Islamic word, meaning ‘a polished stone,’” Dr. Pais explained. “The Spanish liked patterns,” he said, standing in front of a display of azulejos from the 16th century, patterned like an image seen inside a kaleidoscope. The Portuguese, however, “were not so interested in patterns,” Dr. Pais said, and instead tended toward creating scenes with what he called “architectural designs,” like a trompe l’oeil panel resembling a door.
A 75-foot-long mural of Lisbon as it looked before an earthquake in 1755, on display at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
The museum houses a collection of some 17,000 azulejos displayed chronologically.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
The Portuguese tended toward creating scenes with azulejos, said Alexandre Pais, the museum’s director.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
The azulejos were painted in many colors based in metal oxide — green from copper, purple from manganese, white from tin, brown or orange from iron; the paints were toxic and eventually banned from use in the 1980s, Dr. Pais said. The ancient colors would not be revealed until after the azulejos came out of the kiln. Until then, “the colors all looked gray,” Dr. Pais said, and the painter had to rely on experience to know what colors to work with and how to apply them in various thicknesses to get the desired result.
Trade, the economy, politics — azulejo makers responded to the sweep of Portuguese history. Blue and white, the popular color combination from the 17th century to today, was influenced by the Delft tiles being made in the Netherlands, he said, which were inspired by the porcelains being brought back from China by traders from the Dutch East India company. Yellow also began to be used during this period, to suggest gold.
The last room of the museum displays what Dr. Pais called “the jewel in the crown,” a 75-foot-long mural of Lisbon as it looked before an earthquake in 1755.
By that time, azulejos had become works of art, created by artists, not simply painters. “It was the master period,” Dr. Pais said.
And it is one that continues today, witnessed by the contemporary painted azulejos adorning the walls of the former convent’s cloister.
The program was planned to celebrate the company’s 175th anniversary. (Known originally as the workshop of the founder, António Costa Lamego, it was renamed in 1876 after he died and Margarida Rosa, his widow, or viúva, took over.)
At Viúva Lamego, the word “tiles” is freely used, according to Catarina Morais Cardoso, director of marketing. Making them, she said, starts with clay: “We own our own clay quarry.” It arrives premixed as slabs, which are rolled out into sheets of varying thicknesses, depending on their intended use, by a machine resembling a large pasta maker.
The sheets of clay are then chopped into squares and prepared for firing in a kiln, painting by hand, firing again, cooling and a final quality check. This all happens in a space the size of an airplane hangar, filled with racks stacked with thousands of tiles in various stages of production and hauled from machine to machine by forklifts. The factory has the capacity to produce 25,000 tiles a day.
An azulejo design at the Terreiro do Paço metro station. Blue and white, the popular color combination from the 17th century to today, was influenced by the Delft tiles of the Netherlands.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
A blue-green azulejo wall developed by Viúva Lamego at a pavilion in Lisbon’s Parque das Nações.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
A colorful and action-packed scene produced by Viúva Lamego in collaboration with artists at a business and hotel center.Credit...Daniel Rodrigues for The New York Times
Viúva Lamego works on commercial projects like hotels and shops and on private commissions, which have included a swimming pool in Edinburgh and a 12-meter-high (almost 40 feet) representation of a wedding cake for Waddesdon Manor, a country estate in Buckinghamshire, England.
Clients can choose from a “candy shop” of designs and colors, Ms. Cardoso said, or have something custom-made.
“We have an inventory of 72 colors, and our chemical engineer can create new ones,” Ms. Cardoso said, mentioning a customer who wanted tiles in the Majorelle Blue found at Yves Saint Laurent’s home in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Viúva Lamego has also provided tiles for public art commissions. “We are in 31 countries,” Ms. Cardoso said. “Ninety percent of the subway stations in Lisbon have our tiles,” as do subways in Moscow and Paris, she said.
The same system of labeling is used in the restoration studio at Manuel Marques Antunes, a family-run business founded in 1985 outside Estoril, a seaside resort 15 miles west of Lisbon.
Today the studio is run by Mr. Antunes’s grandchildren — Tiago, Joana and Rita Antunes Rego, who are all in their 30s. “And my mother and father give advice,” Tiago Antunes Rego said. The parental counsel is never far away — the white stucco family home with its terra-cotta roof overlooks the atelier and its yard.
The yard is a marvel, an open-air warehouse of azulejos made on site or collected over the years. Thousands of azulejos are stacked like library books on shelves, or placed in plastic bins that used to hold Dannon yogurt at the supermarket. The azulejos are for sale to anyone who wants to visit and poke around. Or customers can go inside the atelier and browse a display of current azulejos in stock, enter another room to place a custom order, or peruse another featuring antique examples.
No commission, restoration or custom order is too small, Mr. Rego said. “We will reproduce four tiles or 4,000” at a cost of about 20 euros, or $22, per tile, he said.
The company also restores azulejos, Mr. Rego said, like those in the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon from the 1960s and ones in the Lisbon home of the French fashion designer Christian Louboutin. An artist, Sónia Guerrinha, is restoring a panel from an old palace in Sintra that is being turned into a hotel. There are portions of individual tiles missing, as well as entire sections of blank spaces where the azulejos had fallen off because, Mr. Rego said, “it’s humid in Sintra.”
That natural calamity provides Ms. Marques with the most exciting part of her job. “I have to imagine what it looked like,” she said in the restoration studio. After researching in the company’s library and studying what remains of the panel, it’s her call. “I will provide a sketch of the design,” she said, and when it is approved she will complete the many steps that turn it into a finished azulejo.
For antique tiles, recreating the background color is key, and the formula is guarded. “We have our secret recipe, like Coca-Cola,” Mr. Rego said.
Azulejos are such a part of Portugal’s identity that representations of them can be found on the sides of tuk-tuks lining Lisbon’s majestic waterfront square the Praça do Comércio and on tubes of toothpaste on pharmacy shelves. “Azulejos represent a genuinely unique expression of Portuguese culture,” Dr. Pais said. “They are not just tiles.”
