Fun Facts about Tiles and Bricks

The word “tile” comes from the word “tegula” in Latin, which means to cover something. In the Japanese buildings industry, the word tile refers to ceramic building materials to dress the walls and floors of buildings, following the meaning of the origins of the term. Broadly speaking, the properties of the material do not matter, and other thin, square pieces used to cover walls and floors are also referred to as tiles, such as carpet tiles.

Various words are used to refer to tiles in different countries. Some use words that do not reflect the original meaning of covering something, such as a name of a place, which is understood to have taken root over a long period of time.

The light blue tiles that were found on the walls of the underground corridor of the step pyramid in Egypt, built approximately 4,650 years ago, are said to be the oldest tiles in the world. These are rare tiles made with desert sand as the main ingredient. The tiles have a beautiful, mystic turquoise blue color surface, created with copper. Turquoise was considered a noble color and a symbol of the royal family and aristocracy.

Throughout the ages, tiles have developed alongside buildings. Sun-dried bricks, which are considered to be the oldest building material, can be traced back to 7000 BC. These bricks were made with clay soil from the bottom of a great river and nearby areas in the Mesopotamia region in the Middle East, and palaces and houses were built by stacking these bricks. When the buildings collapsed due to rain or wind, new sun-dried bricks were made, and buildings reconstructed.

Eventually, people in ancient times learned to fortify bricks by firing them, after which burned bricks were used for buildings. Furthermore, as they grew dissatisfied with the monotonous earth color, they gradually discovered to embellish the bricks with various colors before firing. Bricks painted with a sphinx design were used in a temple in Assyria around 7th century BC.

Later, in the 7th century, Islam was introduced. As Islam prohibits idol worship, mosques were covered both inside and outside with tiles designed in arabesque patterns and Arabic calligraphy, as if to demonstrate the divine presence of God in the universe. The range of colors of tiles expanded, including blue, light blue, green, yellow, red, gold and purple and became very colorful. However, in those days, tiles were expensive and precious materials for building decorations and were only used to embellish palaces, mausoleums, and mosques of those in power or for public buildings such as hospitals, religious schools, merchant lodges, and communal baths.

The war with the Chinese in the 8th century introduced Chinese pottery to the Arab world. Islamic potters invented various methods as they imitated the Chinese techniques and made tin-glaze pottery which coated tiles made with brown soil with white tin glaze before applying multiple color glazes, and lusterware with a metallic shine. These techniques subsequently spread from Spain to various parts of Europe with the expansion of the Islamic empire, influencing each other within China, Japan, and the European continent.

Tiles first appeared in Japan in the Asuka Period (592-710). According to The Chronicles of Japan (Nihon Shoki), the second-oldest book of the history of Japan compiled in 720, a statue of Buddha and the Buddhist Scripture came to Japan from the ancient Korean kingdom of Baekje in 538. In 588, experts in temple construction, painting, and roof tiles were sent from Baekje together with Buddha's ashes to build a temple, and these experts later produced roof tiles on a nearby hill to erect the Hokoji Temple. The first tiles made in Japan were those for the roofs, walls, and floors of temples, based on these experts' manufacturing technique.

The most popular tile shapes are square and rectangle, as they are the simplest and easy to make and place on walls and floors. There are also tiles shaped in a circle, triangle, hexagon, octagon, and eight-pointed star as well as geometric mosaic cut work tiles which can be combined to form a flat surface. In mosques, one can find embellishments on the walls with each curve of the arabesque design made with a tile. As for the sizes, tiles in the old days were not that large as they needed to be carried by hand, but today, large tiles with around one-meter length sides weighing tens of kilograms each are manufactured with king-size press molding machines, when producing a tiled concrete wall in a factory.

By mixing naturally abundant iron, copper, chromium, cobalt, nickel, antimony, and other metal compounds with the soil ingredients and firing at a high temperature of about 1,000 ℃, various colors emerge through chemical reactions. This is common to all general pottery, such as vessels and plates.

• Iron: red, brown, yellow, copper, black
• Copper: green, turquoise, red
• Chromium: green, purple, pink, black
• Cobalt: blue
• Nickel: blue, green
• Antimony: yellow
• Tin: white
• Manganese: purple, copper, pink

The primary material of tiles is clay soil, a weathered form of granite, combined with other ingredients such as feldspar, potters stone, limestone, talc, etc. Today, the mixture is determined to ensure the utmost quality, based on where the tiles are used. Tiles that predate modern industries were often made with soil from nearby fields or mountains, with limited processing such as sieving out coarse particles. Rare materials include sand used to make Egyptian faience tiles and ground silica for Iznik tiles from Turkey.

Italy, Spain, China, Turkey, Portugal, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, France, Japan, Taiwan

Weather resistant, fireproof, and waterproof, tiles are the best finishing materials to protect walls and floors of buildings.

• Durability: Does not deteriorate, discolor, or change in quality due to natural environment and weather conditions.
• Chemical stability: Does not change when in contact with acids, alkalis, and chemicals.
• Physical stability: Excels in heat tolerance as well as being fireproof and waterproof.
• Maintenance: Excels in being wear and abrasion resistant and easy to clean.

Famous manufacturers with a long heritage affix their brandmark on their products, even on tiles. The brandmark tends to be placed on the back or the side of the tile, where it is not openly visible. Many manufacturers were born in the post-industrial revolution Britain, and brands such as WEDGWOOD and MINTON which later became famous for their tableware produced beautiful ornamental tiles in those days, proudly attaching the name and brandmark on the back of the tiles. William De Morgan who pursued handmade tiles also engraved the brandmark on his products.
Recent Japanese tiles are engraved with the registration mark of the factory of production specified by JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards).

Tiles made in the 19th century and before were highly decorative, with designs. Relief moulded or painted with multiple colors, but those that surround us today are often monochrome per tile, such as white, cream, or earth color.
Tiles for the exterior walls of buildings are produced in multiple different hues, such as dark, medium, and light earth color, which are mixed when affixing on the walls to add some depth to prevent the walls from becoming too monotonous. As for interior tiles, while those with complex base patterns and various designs are being produced with the development of printing technology, they are still far simpler compared to the decorative English tiles of the 19th century.

Decorative styles have their fashions. Tiles currently in the market have simplified, as the focus has been primarily on functionality, but we live in a world today in which individuality and personal taste are greatly valued. Ornamentation of walls could be one way to express one's individuality and we may eventually see a revival of the decorative tiles similar to those that once adorned the public buildings and the walls and floors of homes in England.

A brick is a piece of earthenware building material, shaped like a matchbox, with its origins dating back to the sun-dried bricks from the era before Christ. Currently, the standard size of red brick is 10cm long, 21cm wide, and 6cm thick. As the words “brick building” suggest, bricks have mainly been used to establish building structures. Various methods of stacking bricks exist, depending on which different patterns adorn the surface of the building, created by the joints. Sometimes, brick walls are further tiled or plastered.

Surface finishing material for walls of buildings developed by making thin bricks are what are known as exterior tiles. As bricks are thick, when stacked, brick walls become 20-30 cm thick, with the two sides, the shorter 10 cm × 6 cm side and the longer 21 cm × 6 cm side appearing on the surface. Tiles with the same dimensions and thickness of around 15mm are called “Koguchihira” and “Nichogake” tiles, respectively, in the Japanese building industry. Initially, these tiles were produced in the same color as bricks. The Great Kanto Earthquake demonstrated that brick buildings were vulnerable to earthquakes, and accordingly since then, new buildings were built with reinforced concrete, covering the exterior walls with these tiles.