PrefaceThe majolica technique is an Islamic heritage whose technology flowed from the Middle East to Iberia, then to Italy, where it evolved and flowered during the Renaissance, and from there back to Spain and to Antwerp from where it irradiated throughout Europe. In decadence as an art medium in the second half of the 16th century, majolica had a surprising flowering in Portugal precisely at that time in a particularly demanding avatar as wall linings, and the pillars of the Portuguese predilection for majolica azulejos started being grounded. After a century of evolution through a succession of styles, full linings in cobalt blue over the white tin glaze were again promoted to the status of art in Portugal at the close of the 17th century, when artists started painting and signing azulejo panels masterfully integrated in the Baroque interiors - maybe the most original Portuguese contribution to the art heritage of Europe.Movable Italian maiolica art is supremely beautiful but for glazed ceramics to be integrated architecturally, a whole new set of problems materialize. Majolica linings are an artist’s dream and an engineer’s nightmare. A dream because the pigments used to paint them become sealed in glass and potentially forever lasting and shiny; a nightmare because they go against the most basic recommendations an engineer would put forward about a construction material. Laminated materials are problematic because their properties change abruptly, which is always a source of concern for the engineer. But glazed ceramics such as azulejos take that proposition to extremes by lining a very porous ceramic material that tends to expand by absorbing humidity with impermeable glass that does not expand at all and totally cuts the vapour transmission from the wall to the environment. Glazed ceramics for architectural integration are a summit of achievement of try-and-error technology that does not cease to amaze those who dwell into its technical intricacies.This duality of art content and its material embodiment calls for a co-operation between the Art Historian and the Materials Engineer and that was the ground for the fruitful understanding established in 2009 between the Museu Nacional do Azulejo (the National Azulejo Museum of Portugal) and the Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC - the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering) which frames the organization of the present event. The recent project FCT-AzuRe funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology involves also the HERCULES Laboratory of the University of Evora and the contributions of five different specialized approaches that led to the first scientific instrumental-based probe into the early establishment of azulejo workshops in Lisbon. Some results of that project will be disclosed in this conference.The organization is also a joint effort of the European Project IPERION CH and the National Research Infrastructure on cultural heritage E-RIHS.pt that called for a decisive effort from the members of both the Organizing and the Scientific Committees and to all their members goes our heartfelt thanks. LNEC staff is acknowledged for the local organization and support to the conference. Last but indeed not least, our appreciation goes to all authors whose contributions are the body of the Conference.GlazeArt 2018 follows the successful GlazeArch 2015 and affirms our aim to organize a string of conferences to help expand the network of co-operations towards the understanding and preservation of not only azulejos or majolica, but the whole glazed ceramics heritage