From TILE to TEX collection

From TILE te TEX

This collection of textile pattern inspired by Swiss glazed tiles was born one spring day at Swissminiatur, the park representing the most important Swiss historical buildings in tiny scale. My attention was drawn to a peculiar zigzagged pattern on the roof of Bremgarten Altstadt tower. “What a fantastic and bold combination of colors, and what a peculiar geometry!”, I thought.

I started to search information about these polychromatic roofs and I discovered a huge historical heritage amongst Switzerland and in general throughout Europe, developed in many centuries from the Middle Ages until the first decade of XX century.
Colored roof tiles were typical of Gothic architecture and they became even more common in the medieval revival movement during XIX century as a manifest of Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
Switzerland presents many wonderful examples of polychrome glazed tiles roof in famous buildings such as Basler Muenster, but also in other little realities of our regions.
The colors, as we can see in all other form of art of the Middle Ages, were characterized by strong contrasts and highly saturated hues often complementary to each other. It is thought that these bright colors on northern European roof would enliven the grayness of the skies.
Motifs were inspired by natural and geometric lines from handcrafted products such as textiles. Textiles decoration is in fact one of the most important expression of traditional and national symbols and it was obvious that during mid-nineteen century Gothic revival many European countries decided to migrate patterns from the fabrics to the roofs, as the most suitable (and visible) location to manifest and glorify local culture.

After having done this little research and found many interests palaces, castles, town halls, churches and so forth throughout Switzerland, I decided that my intention with this collection was to transpose these great patterns from architecture back to their original fabric source, filtered in my own personal and modern style.

Furthermore, the European Heritage Days to be held in Switzerland for 2019 will be focused on the theme “colors” and this may be an interesting added value of my collection in this specific period.

Alessandro Remo Mazzoni

www.remotextiles.com