The Arts classes at the Tondela Secondary School carried out a “Tile Route” around the city this Monday, in an initiative promoted by the City Council to mark National Tile Day, which was celebrated on May 6th.
Divided into two groups, the 58 students from the 10th, 11th and 12th years of school discovered on foot some of Tondela’s most valuable heritage in terms of tile art.
The journey began at the Municipal Archive, then passing by two houses, one on Rua General Humberto Delgado and the other on Largo Anselmo Ferraz de Carvalho. The students then passed through the Tondela Professional School and a house on Rua Tomaz Ribeiro.
The circuit ended in the atrium of the Tondela City Council, where students visited the panels painted by Pedro de Figueiredo. The visit to the town hall building was accompanied by the vice-president of the municipality, João Carlos Figueiredo, and councilor Vera Machado.
“Today we celebrate National Tile Day and we, the City Council, wanted to highlight this art that is so important and that constitutes a repository of our history and our territorial identity”, João Carlos Figueiredo told the young people.
“I am sure that this day was certainly not lost, I think it was a day of knowledge, growth and learning”, he added, at the same time thanking the young people for their presence in the town hall.
The “Tile Route in Tondela” was guided by a technician at the Municipal Archive of Tondela who, in addition to an explanation of the works visited and their authors, told the history of Tile in Portugal and Art Nouveau in our country.
The city’s tile heritage is almost entirely part of the Art Nouveau movement. The municipality’s headquarters presents relevant examples of this artistic creation in the form of cladding or partial decoration on the facades and interiors of buildings.
This was the second year that Tondela marked National Tile Day. The date was established in 2017 with the aim of recognizing this national tradition and heritage, while simultaneously reminding the population to value, care and preserve it.
