Lebanon · Fine-Art-Adjacent Workshop Craft
Blatt (tile, as reflected in company name Blatt Chaya, 'Chaya Tiles')
The hand-pouring of mosaic cement tiles using metal stencils and natural pigments, a craft that emerged in Lebanon in the late nineteenth century, influenced by the decorative traditions of the Ottoman Empire and the wider Mediterranean Arts and Crafts movement. What made Lebanese tiles genuinely distinct was not just their patterns but their embedded symbolism: squares inspired by village gardens, colors borrowed from coastal sunsets, stars taken from church ceilings, and motifs echoing Beirut's old building facades. Homes in Achrafieh, Tripoli, Zahle, and Saida used these tiles to tell stories of lineage and taste, with families often requesting custom patterns that became part of household identity, passed down like heirlooms; by the early twentieth century, Beirut was filled with these hand-poured floors, entire neighborhoods connected by a patchwork of motifs, each tile individually poured by hand through metal stencils. Everything changed in the 1950s, when factory-produced utilitarian flooring offered a cheaper alternative, and most tile producers closed their businesses or changed their products entirely; the country's fifteen-year civil war, ending in 1990, further destroyed many tile-adorned buildings. Edgard Chaya, at the age of 87, is directly documented by Al Jazeera as reviving the tradition of handmade mosaic tiles in Lebanon, stubbornly resisting sizeable offers to expand and automate production at his company, Blatt Chaya (Chaya Tiles); his granddaughter Youmna directly explained his motivation: 'He's very passionate about the human element that goes into the making of his tiles; for him, there's no point in using machines just to make more money.' Keeping with a specifically Lebanese identity for the project, Chaya names his individual design patterns after Lebanese regions and towns, including Zahle, Batroun, and Mazraa. As the craft re-emerged in the 2000s, designers and architects abroad began specifically seeking out Lebanese tiles for their warmth and craftsmanship.
Risk level: Endangered · Not independently inscribed
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