The Casino of Cartagena is located in former 18th century palace of Francisco Javier Everardo-Tilly, the Marquess de Casatilly, who was the fifth captain general of the Spanish Armada. The 12th century Moors were the first in Spain to decorate the walls, floors, ceilings, and facades of their religious and secular buildings with colorful tiles laid in geometric patterns. Renaissance era Spaniards introduced figurative motifs. Tiles - or azulejos - are found everywhere in both Spain and Portugal. They are as much a part of life in the Iberian Peninsula as fresh bread, olives, sunshine or the strumming of a guitar. The word azulejo comes from the coloquial Arabic al-zulaij, meaning faience or ornamental tile. Decorative tiles were first made in Mesopotamia, and luster-painted tiles have been produced in the Persian city of Kashan since the ninth century at least. Used primarily to decorate the walls of mosques, by the 13th and 14th centuries Kashan tiles were known for their excellent workmanship and intricate design. They were not only square or rectangular, but were also made in interlocking polygonal shapes whose individual pieces were part of a grander design - foreshadowing the artistic excellence exemplified at the Alhambra, whose interiors were created in the time of Yusuf I in the first half of the 14th century. Tiles - or azulejos - are found everywhere in both Spain and Portugal. They are as much a part of life in the Iberian Peninsula as fresh bread, olives, sunshine or the strumming of a guitar. The word azulejo comes from the coloquial Arabic al-zulaij, meaning faience or ornamental tile. Decorative tiles were first made in Mesopotamia, and luster-painted tiles have been produced in the Persian city of Kashan since the ninth century at least. Used primarily to decorate the walls of mosques, by the 13th and 14th centuries Kashan tiles were known for their excellent workmanship and intricate design. They were not only square or rectangular, but were also made in interlocking polygonal shapes whose individual pieces were part of a grander design - foreshadowing the artistic excellence exemplified at the Alhambra, whose interiors were created in the time of Yusuf I in the first half of the 14th century. Spanish tile eventually became far superior to its eastern predecessors. One reason, according to some experts, may have been the flood of artisans into Muslim Spain, or al-Andalus, as a result of Genghis Khan's invasion of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in the 13th century. Spain was also a cultural crossroads where crafts that had come from the East via Egypt met and were enriched by the late Roman and Visigothic as well as other Mediterranean decorative traditions Tiles grew in popularity, in part because they replaced marble of different colors, which was expensive and very hard to come by. Artisans had perfected techniques for making tiles in a great variety of colors, offering an easier and cheaper way to beautify a house or mosque or palace. The raw materials, too, were widely and readily available. Fierce rivalry among the great Andalusian cities of Seville, Granada and Cordoba spurred the wealthy and their artisans to new heights. The ornate tile designs of intertwined floral, foliate and geometric figures – known as arabesque - became ever more complex and sophisticated, perhaps reaching their ultimate expression at Granada's Alhambra Palace ( see my Granada/Alhambra Set). Cartagena, Spain

Swan Court, 'back entrance'! The main entrance is on the nicer sounding Chelsea Manor Street. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, blocks of flats proliferated in many British cities as a means of providing high-density housing not only for the lower but also for the middle classes. Although often nine or 10 storeys high, they tended to preserve the broad outlines of more conventional types of housing - the Queen Anne mansion and the Georgian townhouse. They offered new, more convenient and cheaper ways of living. Swan Court, an elegantly simple, 1931 brick-built block just off the King's Road, in London, was well suited to its position. The architects, Buckland and Haywood, had - as the contemporary architectural press noted - "investigated the needs of the town dweller, and particularly those peculiar to an artistic quarter, such as Chelsea. Thus, there are flats for the bachelor; flats and maisonettes for the family man; and studio flats for the artist." The studio flats, 16 in all, were situated on the top - or eighth - floor, and were rather more than the glorified bedsits that go by that term now. Each comprised a small kitchen, a smaller bathroom, a modest bedroom and a studio-room some 15 foot by 20 foot. The plan of the building, with its projecting wings, recessed front, and internal courtyard, gave plenty of light to all 144 flats. The 24 maisonettes had their own entrances at ground level, and internal staircases leading up to bedrooms on the first floor, though the number of bedrooms varied from one to three. Storage, the perennial problem of the flat-dweller, had been considered, and the flats were well provided with built-in cupboards. Each had a larder and refrigerators were also fitted as a labour-saving novelty. Two lifts were provided. And the ground-floor entrance halls were decorated in a restrained Art Deco style, with light green walls, and a green-and-gold geometric cornice. The interior decorative finish of the flats was left "to the reasonable choice of the tenant".