Bottega d’Arte is to haute couture as Iris Ceramica is to pret-à-porter. A project assigned priority by the owners, driven by the rhythms and gestures of tradition ceramic arts. To complete this collection of premium surfaces, Iris has entered the small workshops of craftspeople, places filled with history and experience, where a special relationship is nurtured with the raw material, calling clays by name and conserving their expressive ties to the territory.
Bottega d’Arte, in fact, utilizes only the red clays of the Emilia territory to generate a collection that contains five finishes – TerreLustrate, TerreLucide, TerreCotte, TerreCotte Oro and TerreLucide Oro – presented in the single format 15 x 15 cm, the classic small size that has been a distinctive stylistic parameter in the past, evoking the tradition of ceramic tile and enhancing it with new creative stimuli.
This year the geometric design of the historic Città di Faenza collection by Iris Ceramica, from 1974, provides inspiration for a new line of facings created by Bottega d’Arte, which could be admired in Milan in the exclusive garden of Galleria Rossana Orlandi, on Via Matteo Bandello.
“What struck me most about Bottega d’Arte was the extraordinary range of colors: an impeccable selection of hues,” comments Rossana Orlandi, who has hosted the collection in her space in Milan, creating custom tops for garden tables. “The products reflect an artisanal spirit: they are imperfect and their materiality is clearly on view. When I saw the rendering and the color range, I did not want to hesitate to give the tiles a different location, rather than the usual wall cladding.”
The Città di Faenza collection, originally in a single chromatic version, has been revived in the format 15 x 15 cm, with various colors and in six product lines: TerreLustrate, with its pale hues; TerreLucide, with fifteen different colors; TerreCotte and TerreCotte Motivi, in ten colors; TerreCotte Oro and TerreLucide Oro.
There are three surface finishes: natural, bringing out the opacity of the colors while highlighting their shadings with a satin-like surface; shiny, with a reflecting effect, soft and bright, that accentuates the intense chromatic versions; and polished, with iridescent reflections and mother-of-pearl highlights, lighting up the material and making the hues glow with vivid effects.
