Exploring Moorish and Mudéjar influences in Aragon and Teruel

In the year 711, a loose confederacy of Berber, Black African and Arab tribes invaded and conquered most of what is now Spain. In English, we call these people Moors though that's not a term they used for themselves. They called their conquered territory Al-Andalus and they remained on the Iberian peninsula for nearly 800 years. The Islamic impact of the Moors was profound and it can still be felt and seen in modern Spain today. Here are some details of the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza. This is true Moorish architecture.

Starting in the 1200s, a coalition of Christian kings started to drive the Moors from Spain in a three century long campaign called the Reconquista. As Moorish territory fell to the Christian kings of Spain, the Moors who stayed behind were allowed to continue to practice their religion. At least until the 15th century that is.

The Spanish called the Moors who remained in these newly conquered territories Mudéjar. The word itself is a Medieval Spanish reworking of an Arabic term for "the ones who stayed." Mudéjar is also the name of the architectural style from this period. Mudéjar is a hybrid of Moorish, Gothic and Romanesque styles.

It is this Mudéjar architecture that most non-Spaniards think of when they think of Moorish architecture. Mudéjar reached its highest degree of sophistication in the Spanish provinces of Aragon and Teruel. Thanks to the generosity of The Spanish Tile Manufacturer's Association (ASCER) and Tile of Spain, I had the chance to be in both of those places last week and to see for myself what Mudéjar looks like in person.

Here's a collection of architectural details and all of it is in the Mudéjar style. I took these photos in Zaragoza and Teruel and they're not in any particular order.

So the next time someone starts talking about Moorish or Moorish Revival architecture, ask that person to clarify whether he's talking about true Moorish or Mudéjar. It will make you sound smart.

Bath trends from Spain

As I've been saying all week, Tile of Spain had me in Spain for eight days to learn about the culture and people of Spain and to attend Cevisama. Cevisama is a massive trade show that celebrates the Spanish tile, natural stone and bath industries.

I'm a trade show veteran and have been to more kitchen, bath, tile and stone trade shows than I can count. But this last month has had me in three major trade shows outside of the US and it's been an eye-opening experience to say the least. I have volumes to say on that topic but I'll save that for later.

Here are some of the highlights of the bath designs I saw at Cevisama. As you look through these designs, pay attention to the shapes, colors and ideas. Most of this stuff will never make it to North America but the ideas behind the designs will. Eventually.

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So there you have it, my highlights from Cevisama. Is there anything in those photos that moves you for better or worse? What do you think of the idea of suspended vanities? How about the idea of giving yourself less storage on purpose? Think about it, if you can store less stuff that means you have to have less stuff. I find that appealing but I have a feeling that I'm a minority in that opinion. I've numbered all of my photos here so let me know which one's your favorite and which one's your least favorite.

Again, a thousand thank yous to Tile of Spain for the opportunity to explore the Spanish design scene.

Standing in the footsteps of Columbus

Last Wednesday, thanks to the generosity of Tile of Spain and the Spanish Trade Commission, I toured the grounds of the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, Spain.

Of course, my camera's battery was dying so I have to use a Wikimedia shot for the outside of the castle. The rest of the photos here are original though.

The Aljafería Palace is the largest, preserved Moorish structure in Spain and it tells a history that won't stop. It dates from the mid-11th Century and it was the fortified palace of Ahmad I al-Muqtadir. Moorish Spain wasn't a single entity, rather, it was a collection of independent kingdoms.

The Moors were a force in Northern Spain until mid-11th century and even after the reconquest of northern Spain, a now Christian Aragon remained an independent nation and the Aljafería remained the seat of power.

Fast forward to the mid-15th Century and the marriage of Isabella, Queen of Castile and Ferdinand II, King of Aragon. Their union formed the foundation of the modern nation of Spain and they ruled over their newly joined kingdom from the Aljafería Palace.

Fast forward another 540 years and some guy from St. Petersburg, FL (me) found himself standing in the inner courtyard of the Aljafería.

I've been fortunate to stand in some pretty significant places in my life and I can't be in a place like the Aljafería and not feel the humanity of the people who've been there before me. So as I was standing there it hit me like a rock that since this was the palace of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus would have passed through this courtyard on his way up to his audience with them.

Christopher Columbus was an idea man. Contrary to popular belief, people had known that the earth was round since the Egyptians ruled over the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Columbus was a visionary and he was determined to find someone to fund his great idea to sail across the Ocean Sea to reap the riches of India. For eight years he'd been pestering royal courts all over Europe and it was in Spain that he found a receptive audience.

It took him years to convince the Spanish Monarchs that his was a can't lose proposition. Ultimately, they decided to fund his expedition from an encampment in Granada but the preliminary meetings took place in the Aljafería.

So as I was standing in that Courtyard, I had a flash of insight into Columbus. I deliver pitches all the time. I'm an idea guy too. In fact, I have another pitch today at 10am. I'm nervous about it and I know Columbus was nervous about his too. The stakes for him were infinitely higher than my stakes are but the anxiety he felt then and the anxiety I feel now are the same.

As different as the world is now from what it looked like 500 years ago, what those two worlds have in common is people. We're the same now as we've ever been. We may know more stuff but our emotional ranges haven't changed. Anxiety now is the same as it's ever been. The same thing's true for love, or joy, or anger, or fear.

It's great to have the opportunity to stand in a truly old place such as the Aljafería Palace and to see and feel those common threads of humanity. Places like that help me put myself into some kind of historical context and to see that I'm really not so important or significant after all. I mean, I'm pretty important in the context of my own life but so far as the big picture goes, I'm not such a big deal. I find that comforting, that perspective.

Places that afford that kind of reflection are a dime a dozen all over Europe but they're pretty uncommon on this side of the Atlantic. I know that the profusion of such places is what draws me to Europe so strongly. But the very fact that I'm drawn so strongly marks me as an American. It's a curious thing.

Tile trends from Cevisama

The Spanish Tile Manufacturer's Association (ASCER) promotes Spanish ceramic tile in North America as Tile of Spain. I was the fortunate recipient of a trip to Spain last week to get to know the Spanish tile industry, Spanish culture and the Spanish people. My trip was built around my attending Cevisama, the Spanish tile, stone and bath trade show.

Cevisama was an enormous show, easily the largest tile trade show I've ever attended. The facility where it was held, the Feria Valencia, was an amazement.

As I walked the show floor and toured the booths I saw a number of overriding trends, many of which will end up on this side of the Atlantic eventually. Tile is the default material for much of the world though it's certainly not in North America and that's unfortunate. It's a great material and I learned more about it in Spain than I ever thought there was to know.

The big news from Spain is that the Spanish have mastered the art of digital printing on tile. The tile above isn't the banded calcite it appears to be. That is a pattern printed on a ceramic tile. The printing was so clear I could swear I saw the saw marks from a stone saw on that tile.

The Spanish use tile in innovative ways. The shelves above are made form walnut shelves with porcelain tile dividers.

All over Europe, builders are using large-format, thin porcelain tiles for sheathing the exteriors of buildings. When used in this manner, the tile isn't held into place with mastic and grout. Rather, it's hung on an aluminum rack with a layer of insulation behind it. This makes for a highly energy efficient structure that never needs to be maintained.

Moving back inside, the long horizontal wall tiles we see here were all over the place. For the last couple of years, designers in North America have been obsessed with hiding grout joints and it was kind of interesting to see the grout in this bathroom be an integral part of this design.

Almost every tile I saw had a lot of texture. This one was interesting because it's a 12" tile with with a textured mosaic printed on it. This would make installation a snap and I apologize to my friends in the mosaic world for coming close to liking this tile.

This is another 12" tile with textured mosaic printed on it. When done this way, this faux mosaic takes on a character that's utterly different from a mosaic.

I saw a lot of bright colors and very few of them were on flat tiles.

In keeping with the digital printing mastery, what appears to be a wallpapered bathroom is actually, completely tiled.

I saw a lot of tile being used in rooms other than the kitchen and bath uses we're so accustomed to in North America.

Here's another ceramic tile that appears to be wood paneling and wallpaper.

I saw a large number of combinations of natural stone, glazed ceramic and metallic ceramic. That hexagonal shape was pretty popular too. This is not something I'd ever think to do on my own but I think it looks pretty terrific.

I took thousands of photographs while I was there so consider this to be the first in a series on tile trends. What do you think of all of this? Would you ever use any of these styles in your own home?

Thank you once again to Tile of Spain for this once-in-a-lifetime trip to Spain. If you'd like to learn more about what the Spanish tile industry is up to, you can find all the information you could ask for on Tile of Spain's website.

What is storytelling? A Let's Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What is storytelling?"

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I spend a lot of time in internet marketing and social media circles. There are a number of buzzwords that get a lot of play in that world and the current most-used and least-understood buzzword is storytelling.

In social media and internet marketing circles, storytelling takes on a shape something like this.

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Ugh. How do people get paid to come up with such meaningless nonsense? Seriously, what does any of that mean?

My understanding of storytelling comes from something other than a dull-as-dishwater seminar or committee meeting. For me the be-all and end-all example of great storytelling is this, Grimm's Fairy tales.

In 1812, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first edition of 86 German folk tales under the title Kinder- und Hausmärchen. That's translates literally into Children's and Household Tales. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm kept releasing new volumes of stories through 1857 when the story count consisted of 211 tales.

Then, as now, the Brothers Grimm and their stories were savaged by critics for being so inappropriate for children. I disagree of course and am happy to report that I grew up with them.

For me, the stories contained in my unabridged Grimm's Fairy Tale collection epitomize storytelling. Each tale is, like all good stories, a personalized morality tale. And I mean morality in the true, non-religious, sense of the term. Morality is the code of acceptable behavior in a culture. Good stories personalize an account of an individual's either going along with those rules or defying them. But more important than the morality tale aspect to a good story is the personalization.

It's easy to get caught up in the buzzwords and catch phrases of the day and to lose sight of what it is we're talking about when it comes to a term like storytelling. Storytelling has nothing to do with terms like "project-based learning" or "technology integration" (again, what on earth does any of that mean?). Storytelling is the uniquely human ability to personalize a situation to teach a lesson, to make a point, sell a product or just entertain somebody else.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.