With more than 200 million Muslim inhabitants, Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world. This means a countless number of mosques can be found there, varying from small prayer houses in the rural areas to enormous buildings in the big cities. Our mosaics were used for the renovation of one of those big mosques: tiles made from real gold, placed on the impressive domes of the mosque. Read more about this special project below!
Tourist hotspot
Whenever you visit Indonesia, there are a lot of must-see attractions. From beautiful nature on the countryside to fantastic architecture in the major cities. The many mosques in Indonesia are also important tourist hotspots, so the government attaches great value to the condition of those buildings and regularly renovates them. For one of those renovation projects our mosaics were chosen for the tiling of the domes: an honourable project, with an amazing end result.
The mosaics
The renovation of the mosque was subcontracted to architects, who were looking for mosaics made out of real gold. They contacted The Mosaic Factory, although we only supply these kind of special mosaics on request. The used mosaics consist for 98% out of real gold and have a coating of clear glass on top. Thanks to this glass, the mosaics are resistant to damaging influences from outside, which makes them retain their splendour for many years. Moreover, the combination of gold and glass reflects the sunlight shining on the dome, adding an extraordinary effect to the mosque. The glass mosaics come from our Amsterdam collection and have a size of 20x20x4 millimetres.
Processing the tiles
A dome mostly consists out of bent surfaces. In order to tile these curves sufficiently, the mosaics were placed in a stretching bond. This means the mosaics have an off-set joint, instead of the usual straight joint. Bricks for example also have off-set joints. Mosaics that need to be applied in a stretching bond, are also supplied that way on the mesh. In the end it turned out that 1800 square meters of mosaics were required for the tiling of the domes. An impressive project, with results we are extremely proud of! Want to see more about our projects? Click here or follow us on Instagram!
