From the small palace to the tenement: the use of hydraulic tiles in buildings of São Paulo city at the turn of the 20th century

Abstract

This paper deals with hydraulic tiles (a type of flooring that results from the mixture of Portland cement with sand, water, marble and granite, and features colorful drawings of geometric or floral shapes) of some constructions built in the city of São Paulo at the turn of the 20th century – more specifically during the last decades of the 19th century and during the first decades of the 20th. We aim here to demonstrate how this building material, which was at first used on the floor of the richest houses of São Paulo city (such as some of the ancient small palaces), as a kind of symbol of status, would spread out little by little, being found at some other types of buildings, in some old workers' houses, and even in one of the poorest type of house of the city – the tenement, associating the different degrees of complexity of the hydraulic tile design to income level of the original owners – the more complex the design, the higher the price of each piece and therefore the richer the owner of the building. Also noteworthy is how this material produced by hand still valued by architects and other professionals today, due to the richness of its drawings, its colors and the diversity of possibilities of composition of its parts.