Removal and cleaning of two artworks made out of tiles

Art in architecture has been placed since the very early history of architecture, while publiclyfinanced art in architecture is a young phenomenon dating back to the early 20th century and, in thecase of former Czechoslovakia to the WWII period. This article then comprises two case studies onartworks placed in buildings under the 4 % to Art Act. Both artworks were located in the 1980s inPrague, the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia). We were allowed to remove both from thebuildings, which had to be reconstructed or demolished. The first removal we did in 2020. Itconsisted of chamotte tiles, and Lubomír Šilar made it. The second was white tiles with coloredimprints by Stanislav Holý, and we were removing it in 2024. In both cases, we had only two days to document and remove the artworks. For the work, we haveused both electric and hand tools. After removal, many tiles had adhesive and mortar on the back,which we have partly removed to store them better. Our findings show that it is possible to removesuch artworks in a shorter period of time if there are enough skilled workers and sound equipment.It is also essential to have the mindset that tiles will crack anyway, and also, in both cases, sometiles have cracked in different phases of the projects. We would appreciate more published studieson tile physics and internal pressures to improve other methodologies next time. Still, we figuredout that for tile removal, we would need long, flat, and strong metal toll as tiles were big, anddiamond grinding discs with an angle grinder, which can regulate RPM, were the best choice toremove excessive mortar from the back. The first artwork is currently in the museum collections;the second is stored in our archive for future reuse and further research.