The tiles on the roofs are the pages of the centuries-old history of buildings, archival documents bearing the makers' autographs and the date of manufacture.
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| Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region. A university academic building |
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| Staryi Sambir. The railway station |
Samples of ceramic roofing can be examined directly on the roofs, tilting your head back, or studied in more detail in museums or at special exhibitions.
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| Chasiv Yar. Donetsk region. The industrial local history museum |
Sometimes surviving specimens can be picked up in emptied villages at abandoned homesteads, whose half-ruined roofs gape with holes open to the sky.
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| Vesele village. Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region |
It is not always convenient for a walking traveller to carry off a heavy artefact, so the collection grows slowly, but the finds encourage the study of the history of this popular fitting.
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| Mykolaivka, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region |
Archaeological research has shown that the innovators of producing this unique roofing were, as always, the ubiquitous Chinese. The ancient Romans and Greeks can be considered their followers. Fierce fires forced Europeans to replace straw and wooden roofs with a covering of non-combustible and inexpensive material.
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| Ivano-Frankivsk region. The "Dzherelo Prykarpattia" sanatorium |
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| Skole, Lviv region. A residential house |
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| Ploske, Svaliava district, Zakarpattia region. A forestry building |
To the positive properties one should add frost resistance, moisture resistance, sound insulation, and low thermal conductivity.
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| Chynadiiovo. Zakarpattia region. The Schonborn castle |
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| Sambir, Lviv region. The library |
In the territory of present-day Ukraine, this durable and aesthetic roofing material was already known in the 2nd-3rd centuries in the Chernivtsi region.
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| Chernivtsi. The priests' house. 1929 |
In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, during archaeological excavations of the Komariv hillfort, a kiln and samples of ceramic roofing of the same period were discovered.
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| Drohobych, Lviv region. A university academic building |
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| Dolyna, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The civil registry office |
In the 15th century in Galicia, defensive and monastic structures were covered with roof tiles.
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| Olesko, Lviv region. The castle, 14th-16th c. |
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| Zhovkva, Lviv region. The Zolkiewski castle |
At the end of the 19th century, to supply roofing material and decorative finishing for the buildings of Galician cities, the famous architect and patron Ivan Levynsky built a ceramics factory in Lviv. Using centuries of pottery experience and European technologies, the entrepreneur built up tile-making capacity in the Prykarpattia region, and the products were supplied to sites all across Austria-Hungary.
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| Lviv. 52 Heneral Chuprynka Street |
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| Lviv. Academic building of the Forestry University |
The tiles were brought to the Black Sea cities by the Greeks, and with the construction of ports, shipyards, and residential quarters, an acute need arose for producing reliable roofing for buildings.
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| Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Odesa region. An abandoned house |
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| Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Odesa region. A Sarmatian crypt preserves roof tiles |
In Mykolaiv, tiles were produced at the Marticelli and Vorontsov factories, opened in the first half of the 19th century.
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| Mykolaiv. Residential buildings in the private sector |
At the turn of the centuries, the ceramic plates were made from low-melting clays and differed in shape.
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| Hnizdychiv, Lviv region. St. Gerard's monastery, the gate |
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| Vyhoda, Dolyna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region. A commercial building |
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| Vyhoda, Dolyna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region. A residential house |
Interlocking, flat, wavy, grooved, and ridge tiles gained production momentum across the whole country and were made in various sizes and shades.
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| Svaliava, Zakarpattia region. The museum |
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| Dubno, Rivne region. The castle |
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| Novohrodivka, Donetsk region. A kindergarten |
In the Azov region and the steppe zone, the forest-poor terrain did not allow for supplying wooden building material. But instead, deposits of clay and the discovery of refractory-clay fields created the preconditions for starting the production of both roof tiles and bricks.
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| Tiles made by Wilhelm Aue. Novomykhailivka, Oleksandrivsk uyezd, Prosiana station. |
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| Vasylivka, Mezhova district, Dnipropetrovsk region. A village cottage |
Several brick-and-tile factories belonged to the Minaiev construction oligarchs.
White tiles were produced in Oleksandrivsk (Zaporizhzhia). In the Donetsk region, beautiful red-orange tiles were made in Hrodivka, one of the oldest villages of the Pokrovsk district. At the factory opened in 1900, they established production of the so-called "Marseille tile", widespread throughout the world. The ceramics were sold to peasants a little cheaper than to other customers. After the revolution, the tile factory was named after the revolutionary comrade Artem. Specimens bearing the "Artil im. Artema" stamp in the surrounding villages are a century old.
Hryshyne had its own small factory. An old cottage, whose owners are in no hurry to swap it for a modern "euro" look, preserves the historical heritage of the village thanks to which the district centre of Pokrovsk arose.
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| Hryshyne, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region. A village cottage |
With the construction of Zhelanna station at the end of the 19th century, a pottery-pipe factory opened in 1902 in the settlement by the station. Perhaps tiles were produced in one of its workshops.
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| Sukhyi Yar, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region. A village cottage |
After liberation from the Nazi occupation, a huge amount of tile production was needed to restore enterprises and private buildings. Factories began producing cement-sand tiles, which require less time and investment to make, but the product is inferior in quality and appearance to its clay foremother.
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| Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region |
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| Sukhyi Yar, Pokrovsk district, Donetsk region. Roof tiles |
In the 1960s, new buildings were covered with slate. Asbestos-cement sheets displaced ceramic tiles, turning residential development into grey, monotonous blocks. In recent decades, the former recognition of ceramic tiles has been returning. This environmentally friendly roofing material, proven over millennia, is used to cover refined villas and lavish mansions, dacha and cottage settlements. And houses under reliable tiled vaults look stylish and modern.
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| Zhovkva, Lviv region. The town hall |
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