The Tiles of Aveiro - Europe 2023
The tourist district in Aveiro (“Ahh-veh-ro”, it was super difficult as an English speaker not to pronounce it “Ah-vie-ay-ro”), is tiled in the Portuguese way. We’ve heard explanations of the “why” of the tiles. It’s the salt air, the humidity, that requires tiles. But that doesn’t convey the “wow” of the tiles. The delicious patterns on the buildings. The macro effect of a street’s length of beautiful tile, all different.
What was different about Ahh-veh-ro was that a quarter of the houses that had been rebuilt in a modern, Portuguese style. This style loves concrete and geometric forms. A cousin to brutalist architecture, but livened by color and graced by (sometimes perfunctory) tile. I would have liked to see the old tile on these new buildings more.
Here is a gallery of some of what we saw. There’s a link at the end if you want phone backgrounds.
Here’s a gallery of higher quality images.
