Porto - Azulejo Tile Style
The Azulejo tile is one of the first things we couldn’t help but notice in Porto – they’re everywhere! The beautiful ceramic tiles embellish the facades of many buildings and as we roamed the city we noticed the eye-catching tiles decorating everything from benches, street signs and fountains. They even adorned huge arty boulders. Some of the tiles portray historic rustic scenes and others are decorated with intricate geometric designs or flowers. Many are coloured blue and white but there’re others in the traditional Mediterranean colours of green and yellow. Here’s what we discovered…
Arabic Influences
The Azulejo tile was introduced to Portugal by the Moors and the name Azulejo originates from the Arabic word az-zulayj, which means ‘polished stone’. In keeping with Islamic law the first tiles were not allowed to portray human subjects, hence the geometric and floral designs.
From Patterns to People
King Manuel I brought tiles from Seville to decorate his palace at Sintra in 1503. Hugely practical they’d keep the interiors cool whilst needing minimal maintenance and covered vast areas of blank plaster. So much easier just to wipe them down instead of a whole new paint job. By the 1600s the Portugese started to use human and animal figures. Over 100 years of painting geometric patterns has got to give at some point…
São Bento Station
Probably the most beautiful railway station in the world and the most well-known tiled building in Porto is the São Bento Railway Station. Over 20 thousand tiles covering the walls of the old station illustrate the history of Portugal. They were painted by Jorge Colaço, the most important azulejo painter of the time from 1905-1916. We stood and craned our necks checking out the fascinating scenarios and found some more unusual tiles amongst the artwork. But be careful – you could easily miss your train while engrossed in the station’s epic tile-work.
Azulejo Tiles in São Bento Station
The Igreja de Santo Ildefonso
Another building with the mark of artist Jorge Colaço is The Igreja de Santo Ildefonso. The 18th-century church’s facade is covered in nearly 11,000 azulejo tiles and is an imposing building. The tiles are newer than those in São Bento Station and were added to the church in 1932. On the day we saw it the colour of the sky mirrored the blue of the tiles.
Modern Tiles
For a different take on Porto’s azulejos there is a modern art installation just opposite Sao Bento Station where large tiled boulders can be found. The ubiquitous fridge magnet in lots of different designs and colourways decorate the market stalls along the Ribeira – so you could actually reproduce your own azulejo work of art in your kitchen!
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Have you been to Portugal? What did you think of the azulejo tiles? Love them or hate them?
Suzanne Jones is creator, writer and photographer at The Travelbunny. When she’s not indulging her wanderlust you’ll most likely find her enjoying coastal walks in her home county of East Sussex, UK.
Suzanne co-writes Sussex Bloggers which showcases the best of East & West Sussex.
Wow, there are even more tiles that I could possibly have dreamt of! I’m totally obsessed with tiles and I knew Portugal was the place to go, but never imagined so much!
I’ve only seen a hint of them in Macau.
I definitely need to get down there.
Great documentation of them Suzanne, saw your pin on Pinterest with much glee!
The tiles are gorgeous – both Lisbon and Porto have some wonderful tiles 🙂 Love Pinterest – I could/do spend hours dreaming over the travel boards!
As Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese, we also have lots of azulejos there, mainly in old buildings. Nowadays we still use them, mainly in the bathrooms or for decorating a certain room in the house. I love it!
There isn’t something like this here in Germany.
Love your photos, especially the one with the Vespa <3
The tiles were really lovely and add such a lot of colour to the buildings – there were some beautiful azuljos in Lisbon too. I love the word ‘azulejos’ too – just rolls off the tongue!
If you loved the Azulejos, you will love my jewelry. Each piece with a story to tell of the building where it came from (replicas, of course). Hundreds of years of History! https://www.etsy.com/shop/Atrio?ref=hdr_shop_menu
If you love Portuguese Azulejo Tiles, you will also love my jewelry. How about wearing a Piece of History?
Portuguese Antique Tile Replica jewelry by Atrio https://www.etsy.com/shop/Atrio?ref=hdr_shop_menu
That railway station looks like a visitor attraction in and of itself! We visited Portugal shortly after getting married, but after spending time in Cascais and Estoril, we headed south from Lisbon. Next time, we’d love to head north to Porto. We bought some tiles though, which we lugged home, thinking one day we could use them as decorative tiles in a bathroom renovation (they’re still sitting in the garage, however). So much for the bathroom reno!
I’d like to explor Cascais, Sintra and Estoril – Ihave a cupboard full of souvenirs that never see the light of day!
I really like the history behind the tiles, and though I haven’t yet been to Porto I was impressed with the ones we saw in Sintra. As for the train station, it’s stunning!
You’ll have to plan a trip to Porto Suze – I think you’d like The Yeatman Hotel… 🙂
São Bento is just beautiful – one of my favourite train stations.
It’s quite unbelievable and so beautiful 🙂
Such an interesting lens through which to see Porto Suzanne! The Azulejo tiles look beautiful and I particularly like the look of the 18th century church tile work. I’d never previously heard of these tiles before either.
The tiles was such a feature of the city and we found them all over the city – the church was stunning and the picture really doesn’t do it justice.
How could you not love them! I’ve seen some in other parts of Portugal and also in the Cape Verde Islands a former Portuguese colony. Don’t remember seeing any in Goa though which was also Portuguese for quite a while.
They’re very eye-catching – I like the geometric patterned one most 🙂
I just love azulejo tiles so I collect pictures of them https://www.pinterest.com/somerville66/azulejos/
They’re so pretty and I love your Pinterest board. Feel free to pin any of my pics 😉