Fes Zellige Workshops

Zellige is the geometric mosaic of glazed tile that covers Moroccan walls and floors, and Fes is where the best of it is made. The method has not changed much: a clay tile is formed, dried, glazed and fired, then a cutter called a maallem holds it face down on his knee and chips it to shape with a sharp-edged hammer, working blind from the glazed side so the top edge stays clean and the bevel runs underneath - which is why the pieces sit tight against each other with no visible grout line. The shapes are a fixed vocabulary of named pieces, dozens of them, and a pattern is assembled face down on the ground and backed with mortar before being turned over. The workshops are at Ain Nokbi outside Bab Ftouh, alongside the pottery kilns, and they are working businesses that welcome visitors and sell.

What you actually see

• Cutting face down - the tile chipped blind from the glazed side to keep the edge clean.
• A named vocabulary - dozens of fixed shapes combined into the patterns.
• Assembly upside down - panels laid face down and backed before being turned.
• Working ateliers - businesses at Ain Nokbi rather than demonstrations for visitors.

When to go

October to April; weekday mornings when the cutters are working. Two hours.

Honest expectations

These are workshops, not museums - visits end in a showroom and there is sales pressure. Taxi drivers take commissions and steer to particular ateliers. The quarter is dusty and industrial. Prices for genuine hand-cut work are high, and machine-cut tile is sold as zellige elsewhere.

Nearby

Bab Ftouh and the medina are west; the pottery kilns are alongside.