Glass Tiles
Glass tiles are pieces of glass formed into consistent shapes. Early history Glass was used in mosaics as early as 2500 BC, but it took until the 3rd century BC before innovative artisans in Greece, Persia and India created glass tiles. Whereas clay tiles are dated as early as 8000 BC, there were significant barriers to the development of glass tiles, included the high temperatures required to melt glass, and the complexities of mastering various annealing curves for glass. In recent years, glass tiles have become popular for both field and accent tiles. This trend can be attributed to recent technological breakthroughs, as well as the tiles’ inherent properties, in particular their potential to impart intense color and reflect light, and their imperviousness to water. Glass tile introduces complexities to the installer. Since glass is more rigid than ceramic or porcelain tile, glass tiles break more readily under the duress of substrate shifts. Smalti tiles ''Smalti til ...
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Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Orthodox church which lasted from 360 AD until the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. It served as a mosque until 1935, when it became a museum. In 2020, the site once again became a mosque. The current structure was built by the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the state church of the Roman Empire between 532 and 537, and was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. It was formally called the Church of the Holy Wisdom () and upon completion became the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history o ...
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