Asked to make an attractive feature of this exterior wall on a busy street corner facing a primary school, Eric Broug wanted to create a geometric composition rather than a mere repeated pattern. He found inspiration in the tilework of the Marinid-era (mid-14th-century) Bou Inania Madrasa in Meknes, Morocco. Having deconstructed and reconstructed the chosen composition from photos, he scaled it to perfectly fit the allocated arched aperture, with quarter stars at the corners. A new method of using water-jet cutting technology was developed to make larger-scale compositions than traditional handmade manufacturing allows. All the shapes are cut out of conventional 20 x 20 centimetre ceramic tiles, with painted grout enabling larger, composite shapes. An inscription on a large, locally sourced boulder states the Meknes origin and that the design fits into the Moroccan zellij tradition - encouraging locals to discover what this was, without mentioning the term "Islamic geometric design".
Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture
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