Coverings highlights in a little more detail
Coverings 2010 was a real visual feast and I have a box of press kits on my living room floor. It's sitting next to a box full of press kits from KBIS, so I'll be writing new product posts for months. Oy!
Coverings became the second one exchange show and convention for me in two weeks and I'm reeling from data overlaod and aching ft. Again, Oy!
Whenever I go to these indicates, I go in seeking out something new. I wager absolutely everyone does that. But I'm looking for a brand new way of looking at matters more than I'm searching out a new product. It takes a bit greater digging to discover new ideas instead of simply new stuff and there had been finds aplenty at Coverings I'm happy to record.
Most of these finds are going to get posts of their own as I sort through my piles of information and photos, but here are some real highlights that to me represented some new ways of thinking.
Probably the most interesting one to me was this installation by Levantina y Asociados Minerales in Spain.
That became an installation at a stone exporter's sales space, now not a product. That's a water-jetted chandelier inset in a field of grey marble wall tile. The LEDs are grouted in as is the chandelier inset. And the whole lot is a flat installation, not anything's raised.
In all honesty, it's the one of the best uses of LED I've ever seen. So many times LEDs are garish or they're thrown into something in an unusual way just because they can be. This chandelier represents a new idea. That new idea being that lighting and walls can be combined. Though the execution here could use some refinement, what a great idea. Why can't walls be lights and lights be walls?
Also from Spain was Mosaic del Sur in Cadiz . Mosaic del Sure manufactures cement tile. Cement tile is not a new product and it's as gorgeous today as it's ever been. Cement tile is usually done in series of traditional, Moorish- and Byzantine-inspired geometric designs.
Mosaic del Sur has a line of present day patterns even though and it's a real kick to peer a person genuinely designing unique styles for this inherently cool material.
Mosaic del Sur goes to get a publish of its very very own as quickly as I sort though their press kit, but they deserve a shout out for being so adventurous and for being so inclined to indulge me as I mumbled and stammered in Spanish.
All the way from Abu Dhabi came the Terra Viva Group .
Terra Viva does a couple of things but what they do exceptionally well is combine water-jetted natural stone and terra cotta to make flooring, medallions and border tiles that look positively ancient. So often, water-jetted anything can look sterile and machine-made, but Terra Viva's products show off the fact that despite the technology involved, the loving and gifted hand of a genuine craftsman is behind everything.
Finally, from the Spanish manufacturer Peronda came something really unique.
Despite the fit I had about the graffiti china a couple of months ago, I think this is a really interesting way to deal with a field of large-format wall tile.
I cannot believe specifying some thing like that in a venture any time quickly, however I like the idea of placing a blast of primitive colour in a random manner in an in any other case monolithic wall. Granted, there are instances while you need to be monolithic, however for the times you don't Peronda has simply the answer.
So as I said, there will be plenty more Coverings-inspired posts where this one came from. This is just the first of my Coverings highlights posts . If you notice, there are no Italian manufacturers listed here. The Italian tile manufacturers deserve a week of dedicated posts. Man oh man what the Italians brought to the table knocked my socks off. Stay tuned.