Tile Project

Walking from the shouk to King George to get a bus that would let me off at the top of a hill rather than the bottom, I reached the brick-paved section now a pedestrian mall. To the right, giant pictures of tiles and a sign explaining the Jerusalem Tile Project (http://muslala.org/en/projects/the-jerusalem-tile-project/).

In the older parts of Jerusalem courtyards a unmodernized rooms are often floored with decorative tiles, mostly from the last century. The project invites people to look for these, photograph them, and contribute the images. See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.co.il/2007/01/floor-tiles.html and (https://www.google.co.il/search?q=jerusalem+tile+project&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwic--j8mN3RAhWBOxoKHQy3Aq4QsAQIIA&biw=1242&bih=580 )

Copyright 2017 Jane S. Fox

Noticing Jerusalem

• The 174 articles in this blog are a guide to noticing Jerusalem.
• Look up at the stonework around the windows, at the balcony rails, at the roof gardens, and the floors added to older buildings.
• Look down at the tiles in courtyards.
• Look out at the views of the mounded southern hills and the eastern hills that tease your eyes with the chance that you have seen the Dead Sea to the east.
• Notice the little shops still holding on among the chain stores, the odd pieces of sculpture, the trompe l'oeil murals, the seasonal changes of wild flowers in open fields and fruit in the market.
• Visit the little museums. Go to concerts. Don't let the language intimidate you. Ask for help in English, and you'll get it, with a little garbling.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Floor Tiles

• The store selling office supplies and other things on KKL opposite the Rehavia Gymnasia (hard g) has been there since the first houses were built. If you need gift wrap, printer paper, envelopes, a newspaper, notebooks, string or any one of umerous other things -- this shop has it. You can ask in English. Not the tiles paving the wmall area between the door and the sidewalk.
• In the shouk, between Etz Haim and Mahaneh Yehuda Streets, at the end of the alley where the knife sharpener sits, is an unlit staircase. A flashlight reveals that the tiles on its landings are lovely examples of the art. It leads to a roof where floral-patterned tiles form rectangles reminiscent of rugs I have seen in genteel English houses. When the British ruled Jerusalem, this was (I'm told) a popular cafe.
• See also http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/tiles.html
• Tiles have these advantages over rugs: In summer they are cool. To clean them you pour on water and squeegee it away (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/august-sun.html ). Sometimes "away" is onto the heads of people below.

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox

Tiles

• In neighborhoods built between 1860 and 1950, look at the courtyard paving (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/love-and-darkness.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-jerusalem-neighborhood.html ). Sometimes you'll see lovely colored tiles.
• One guide said that these were moved from inside buildings when owners remodeled.
• Someone's going to offer to buy them up for very expensive American houses.

Copyright 2006 Jane S. Fox

August Sun

• In May, June, and July the sun is high above our building. Light floods the livingroom. A little after noon, rays reach the west-facing door to the large balcony, and I lower the shutter. Four hours later, the sun is far enough to the northwest, that we can sit on that balcony, drinking ice café.
• By late August, the noonday sun starts coming in through south windows. I draw the curtains on those shutterless windows and must keep the balcony shutter down until six. All windows are closed, all shutters down. To cool the rooms I squeegee clear water on stone-tile floors. (Each gram of water that turns to vapor takes 597 calories of heat from the air. See http://daphne.palomar.edu/jthorngren/latent.htm .)
• Though lower in the sky, the sun is fierce.
• By six, shadow pools on the balcony, the air cools, and the outside is once more welcome in. Air regains its sparkle. Light pops on along hillside streets and in the sky.
• To think cool in a dry climate see alslo http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/water.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/water-on-jerusalem-day.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/cistern.html and http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/water.html http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/fountains.html

Copyright 2007 Jane S. Fox