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HomeFeatured ArticlesClerkenwell Design Week – TSJ Reports

Clerkenwell Design Week – TSJ Reports

This past May, Clerkenwell Design Week once again transformed the capital’s design district into an enormous open-air exhibition, with its showrooms opening their doors to the public and hosting a plethora of special events. As always, TSJ was in attendance, making sure to visit as many tiling manufacturers and suppliers as we could!

While enthusiasm for this year’s event may have been (unfortunately literally) dampened by the weather, attendees still had ample opportunity to explore and engage in the friendly, social atmosphere which has become its hallmark. In fact, according to organisers, CDW 2024 had the most pre-registrations of any edition to date, up 20% from last year. The event’s thirteenth outing reportedly featured a programme of “more than 600 curated events supported by over 160 local showrooms and 300 exhibitors”.

Showing off
Of course, for our purposes, the event was perhaps a little more limited than that, but there were nonetheless plenty of tile showrooms to visit, including the newly opened Mirage Project Point venue on Greville Street. Joining the suite of Italian manufacturers who have made Clerkenwell a home away from home, Mirage’s showroom hosted a welcome party during this year’s event, inviting guests to enjoy a drink while viewing the company’s latest collaboration. Nagomi (which symbolises balance and serenity) is a collection designed in partnership with architect and designer Hadi Teherani, of which the company says: “By incorporating a significant percentage of glass derived from the recycling of cathode ray tubes from monitors and television screens into our Nagomi collection, we pay homage to a narrative of sustainability that intertwines past, present, and future.”

Elsewhere, Marazzi presented its own recently renovated showroom, focusing particularly on its The Top slabs, which can be used as worktops featuring an integrated induction hob. For obvious reasons, the slabs also utilise the company’s signature antibacterial technology – an interesting deployment of the feature which has otherwise fallen out of mainstream interest since the pandemic. Upstairs, the manufacturer showcased its Materials Library, “updated with the very latest in ceramic and porcelain stoneware, a space dedicated to architects, designers, retailers and consumers in search of inspiration: a physical catalogue of products, where surfaces, textures and colours can be touched and combined at will”.

For its third year of participation in the fair, Atlas Concorde presented a series of products new to the UK market, including the Boost Natural Pro and Marvel 3D collections. First introduced at Salone del Mobile in Milan earlier this year, the company brought these ranges to its Clerkenwell showroom for “customers, partners and professionals” to see and touch for the first time. The tactile element seems especially important for the manufacturer’s two primary novelties, with Boost Natural Pro attempting to replicate the “natural character of raw earth” and Marvel 3D featuring a three-dimensional relief pattern that plays with light.

While there are many manufacturer showrooms around Clerkenwell, the district’s streets still don’t come close to capturing the full breadth of designers and producers working in the industry today. Luckily – at least for a select group of Italian companies – this year’s CDW also featured a two-storey installation packed with 18 more manufacturers who don’t have the luxury of a permanent space in Clerkenwell. Squarely located in the centre of the district at St. John’s Square the Italian Pavilion hosted some of Italy’s top manufacturers including Casalgrande Padana, Ceramiche Piemme, Marca Corona and Panariagroup. The installation was organised by the Italian Trade Agency in collaboration with Ceramics of Italy, and was one of the stops on the “Meet the Buyers” tour for British and European market players (guided by our very own former editor, Joe Simpson!)
For a look back at the Italian Pavilion on the day, make sure to check out TSJ’s YouTube channel, where we’ve uploaded a brief tour around the installation, focusing in on the detail and artistry of the tiles on show.

The home team
Not to be outdone by their European contemporaries, UK tile suppliers like Domus and Solus once again outfitted their showrooms with inventive designs, hosting panel discussions, design talks and CPDs.

For this year’s fair, Domus celebrated a decade of collaboration with brand partner Mutina by showcasing a set of tile designs created by designers Barber & Osgerby. Reminiscent of some of the geometric pattern designs seen at the recent European tile fairs, the Magic of Colour installation “conveys the spirit of experimentation, playfulness, and authenticity that defines the artistic partnership,” says Domus. The installation is set to remain in place until late 2024, so if any readers missed out, the showroom is still worth a visit any day.

Solus hosted a variety of events throughout the week including music performances and non-alcoholic spirit tastings, but its main focus was Laboratory, an installation created by the three-way collaboration of Holloway Li, Refin Ceramiche and Solus itself. The art piece was inspired by Refin’s own materials laboratory “a space in which designers experiment with materials to unlock their hidden creative potential”.

While the weather may have disappointed at this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, the event itself certainly did not. CDW will return in 2025 from the 20-22 May – as always we highly recommend carving out some space in your calendar for a visit!
clerkenwelldesignweek.com

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