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Kütahya Tilemaking, from Clay to Colour

In Kütahya, tilemaking is not only a heritage kept behind museum glass.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye6 Kasım 2026
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Kütahya Tilemaking, from Clay to Colour

In Kütahya, tilemaking is not only a heritage kept behind museum glass. The provincial directorate of culture and tourism, which belongs to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, presents tilemaking as the symbol of the province and as the art form that made the city known across the world. The same page records that tilemaking is also an important source of livelihood for local people. This article looks at the craft itself without repeating the historical story told at the Tile Museum. It explains which clays are used, which methods the work follows and where tile sits among the other crafts of the region. The aim is to help you read the chain of labour behind a coloured plate, a wall tile or a vase when you meet one in the city.

A long history

According to the provincial directorate, ceramic production in Kütahya began with the Hittites and kept developing until the end of the Ottoman period. For more than a hundred years the city served as a buffer zone between the Seljuks and the Byzantines. The directorate writes that tilemaking of this period combined features of Byzantine and Seljuk culture. When the city entered the period of the principalities, Ottoman influence began to show in tile as well. The source names the Umur Bin Savcı Medresesi, dated 1314, and the tomb of Yakup Bey II, dated 1429, among the examples where early Ottoman coloured glazed tiles were used. The fifteenth century stands out for its blue and white group of tiles. These tiles were used in some buildings in Kütahya and also in architectural works in Istanbul and Jerusalem. The same source adds that tile activity in Kütahya slowed down in the sixteenth century, although the city's tiles continued to appear in buildings in Istanbul and other important centres.

Clay and the blend

The first stage of tilemaking is the material. According to the provincial directorate, the raw materials used in tilemaking come from Kütahya and from neighbouring provinces. They fall into two groups. The plastic group includes Kırklar earth, grey Bilecik clay, maya clay and laundry clay. The non-plastic group includes flint, white Bilecik clay and chalk. These materials are mixed in set proportions to prepare a blend. The ratio of the mixture decides what kind of product will come out. In other words, tile is a matter of calculation that begins before the workshop is entered. Every product from a plate to a cup, from a vase to a wall tile has its own mixture, and the mixture shapes the master's method as well.

Three blends, three methods

The source speaks of three kinds of blend called wheel, casting and press. The wheel blend is used for plain wall plates, vases, flowerpots and sugar bowls. In these products the form comes out under the hands of the master at the wheel. The casting blend produces figurines, cups, plates and ashtrays. In this method the clay is poured into a mould to take its shape. The press blend is for plain or patterned wall tiles. Tiles that will be laid together over large surfaces have to come out in the same size and order. So even in the same city and with the same clay, three different workshop routines emerge depending on the product. Part of the variety you see while walking around Kütahya comes from these three methods.

From the workshop to architecture

The function of tile is not only to be an ornament. The provincial directorate writes that Kütahya tiles decorate many works in Turkey and abroad. According to the same text, tile is made in nearly five hundred workshops, large and small. This figure is the one given on the directorate's website at the time of writing. For the current situation you should check the directorate's page. The directorate also notes that tilemaking, which has entered the export goods and gained a richness of pattern and colour, is on a positive path today. So the craft lives in the workshop and on the street as much as in the museum. The tile examples you meet on facades, on fountains and in street furniture are evidence of this continuity. For that reason, walking in the city for a few hours before going to the Tile Museum helps you read the museum better.

The Fincancılar Agreement as a document

One of the documents showing that Kütahya tilemaking was an organised trade is the agreement of 1766. According to the Kütahya Museum Directorate page of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, the document was found while the registers of the Sharia Court were being sorted. It records that an agreement was made, in the time of Judge Ahmet Efendi, between the many masters and employers working in the city's 24 tile and cup workshops and the Governor of Anatolia, Ali Paşa. According to the agreement no workplace other than these 24 would be opened. The wages that master cup makers, journeymen and apprentices would receive were also written down one by one. A heavy penalty was foreseen for those who did not comply. The general directorate writes that a copy of the document is displayed in the Tile Museum, while the original is held in the National Library in Ankara. The document is valuable as a concrete record showing with whom, within which limits and under which wage order production was carried on in the Kütahya of that time.

The crafts beside tile

Telling Kütahya only through tile would be incomplete. The handicrafts page of the provincial directorate lists a variety of living crafts besides tilemaking. Carpet and kilim weaving continues on hand looms in village and town houses. Simav carpets are decorated with leaf and flower motifs and, because they are coloured with root dye, are also called root dye carpets. In needle lace, Kütahya's oya types are divided into five according to their form. These are flower-shaped oyas, leaf-motif oyas, oyas with abstract names, oyas attached to known private lives and oyas of praise or satire. Diamond setting consists of subdivisions such as setting, enamel work and mould making. The village of Saruhanlar in Gediz is named as one of the rare places where wooden spoon carving is practised. Tile is the most visible link in this network of crafts, but it is not the only one.

Porcelain and the continuation of tile

The provincial directorate writes that the first porcelain factory in Kütahya started operating in 1974. According to the text, the skill displayed in tiles for centuries began to live on in porcelain as well. This is information showing that the city's ceramic experience was carried to an industrial scale. Porcelain products are sent all over Turkey and exported to many countries. Even so, hand-made tile and factory porcelain are not the same thing. The difference in pattern on the surface of a hand-made piece, the thickening of colour here and there and the trace of the brush are ways of telling the city's traditional craft apart. A traveller who knows this distinction looks at a shop window more carefully.

The UNESCO Creative City title

The promotional page of the Kütahya Governorate writes that the city was found worthy of the title Creative City by UNESCO. The same page describes Kütahya as a city with a seven thousand year past that has hosted important civilisations. Tile is one of the strongest headings behind this title. Still, the best way to learn the details and scope of the title is to check the city's official pages. For the visitor, what matters is that the craft can be seen in everyday city life, beyond being a record or a label.

How to see tile in Kütahya

It makes sense to start at the Tile Museum. The museum is in the almshouse section of the complex of the Germiyan ruler Yakup II and, according to the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, displays tile works from the fourteenth century to the present. Hand embroideries such as napkins, belts, headscarf edgings and pouches can also be seen there. After the museum you can walk through the city centre and look at tile on the facades. In the garden of the City History Museum on Germiyan Street, the production stages of Kütahya's traditional tile art are shown. This information appears on the Governorate page. Because opening hours, entry conditions and fees change over time, they should be checked on the official pages of the museums. If you buy from a workshop you can ask whether the piece is hand-made and by which method it was produced. In that way the distinction between wheel, casting and press helps you read what you see in the window.

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