One week cutting tiles in Fez
With Khalid El Fassi · Fez
A week in my workshop learning zellige cutting. This is not a course about zellige history or appreciation — it is about the hammer and the chisel. You will spend the week learning to cut the eight-pointed star correctly. That is the whole curriculum. If you can cut the star by the end of the week, you understand zellige. Most people cannot. That is the point.
- Duration
- 6 days
- Location
- Khalid's workshop, Medina, Fez, Morocco
- Max students
- 3 per cohort
A set of correctly cut eight-pointed stars that you cut yourself. A direct, physical understanding of why zellige takes the time it takes. Khalid's honest assessment of whether you have the patience and precision to go further.
Anyone willing to do slow, precise, repetitive work with their hands. Architects and designers who specify zellige for projects and want to understand what they are asking for. Ceramicists curious about a different relationship between tool and material.
6 days in detail
The fired clay tablet — how it is prepared and why the material matters
Reading the geometry before touching the tile
The menqach (cutting hammer) — grip, posture, and the single-strike cut
Cutting the eight-pointed star — morning and afternoon, every day
Setting tiles in mortar — one hour on the last day so you understand how the cut becomes a panel
A visit to a building in the medina where historic zellige can be studied directly
Khalid El Fassi
Zellige and ceramic tile · Fez, Morocco
A cooperative or artisanal ministry has vouched for this artisan. The institution stakes its reputation on the introduction.
I am a maâlem of zellige. The tiles I make are cut from a fired clay tablet, by hand, with a hammer. The geometry comes before the colour. I am not the right person to collaborate with if you want something quickly — even a small panel takes weeks because every piece is shaped one at a time. I am the right person if you want a panel that nobody else in the world has.
In the archive
Khalid has documented this tradition in detail in the Amussu Archive. It is free to read.