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https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/foster-partners-new-manhattan-skyscraper-powered-entirely-renewable-energy

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Modernist tiles

In a previous post about the Modernisme architectonic style, I said I wouldn’t mention the tiles not to make the post longer… @kiragecko​ asked for some tiles, so here are some examples!

The tiles in this post are “rajoles hidràuliques” (meaning “hydraulic tiles” in the Catalan language), which is a kind of tile invented in the 1850s in Catalonia and very widespread in our country since they’re very resistant and quite cheap.

In this post I include photos mostly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, all from buildings in Catalonia and often inspired in older traditional Catalan tile stiles and the style of carpets.

This website posted a lot of tiles from Barcelona.

These ones were in the library of Vilassar de Dalt.

Barcelona again.

The street pavement in parts of Barcelona.

Palau Baró de Quadras, Barcelona. Tiles in the walls and floor.

There’s also wall tiles in relief

The two above are in Barcelona and the bottom one in Canet de Mar.

Wall and ceiling in Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona.

Two examples of walls in Barcelona.

And it’s not only for the floors and lower half of walls, they used it in the outside of buildings too:

The roof of Casa Batlló (Barcelona, Catalonia). It represents the scales of a dragon, as if the dragon was asleep on top of the house.

Or to write the name of your house (Bell Esguard)

Or to make a mosaic (this is also in Torre de Bell Esguard)

For your shop’s door.

Outside domes or the top of towers.

Outdoors of two buildings in Argentona.

This is in Canet de Mar too.

We could spend pages and pages and pages on floor hydraulic tiles alone (seriously, Catalonia is FULL of different designs of them), but I think everyone who has to scroll past this post will appreciate it if I stop making it longer. If you want to see more photos of Catalan modernist architecture, the photographer Arnim Schulz has hundreds of photos in his Flickr account (or let me know if there’s interest in something else and I’ll post it).