Thursday, May 21, will be dedicated to tiling and paving

Visitors to Café Jedna on the ground floor of the National Gallery in Prague can be convinced that tiles do not have to be just a boring addition to the interior. On Thursday, May 21, there will be a competitive vernissage of ceramic works by ten Czech artists held here in celebration of International Tile Day. The designs will be on display until Friday, May 22. In addition, interested parties can attend workshops or listen to interesting lectures on Thursday, which are intended for architects, builders, students in these fields, as well as the public.

Michal Škapa with his own design

At two o'clock in the afternoon, renowned Prague photographer Pavel Hoffelner, alias Hofik, will explain the principles and rules of photographing interiors. Following him, Massimo Merello from the Italian ceramics company Ragno will present ceramics in the context of past and present. Shortly after five o'clock in the afternoon, the brilliant technician Takashi Hirai will speak, bringing with him from Japan a demonstration of a new self-cleaning surface for tiles. With this type of ceramic, one can forever forget about the mop and bucket. Subsequently, Paolo Dallari, representing a gem in the world of design, the Italian ceramics company Mutina, will take the stage; a company that does not follow current trends, has rejected the trend of imitating other materials, and collaborates with top world designers. All questions regarding designs and technical standards will be answered by engineer Hana Kotorová from the Technical Testing Institute in Plzeň.

„Today's ceramics differ from the original not only in raw material composition and the level of technological processing but also in the resulting properties. It is expected to be primarily a cheap and technically perfect imitation of other materials; from wood, through cement to marble. However, a ceramic fragment is beautiful and valuable to a person in itself. And that is precisely the theme of the workshops for International Tile Day, which we have launched together with the leading Czech importer of tiles, Archtiles,” says one of the event organizers, Ondřej Oliva.

Artists compete for 1500 Euro and a new commission

Archtiles, along with Ondřej Oliva, approached ten Czech artists, designers, and architects: painter Ira Svobodová, graphic artists Jakub Uks (Obic), Pavel Tichon (Ticho333), and Michal Škapa (Tron), painter Jiří Lauterkranc, architects Miloš Munzar and Jaroslav Wertig, architects Dagmar Štěpánová and Katarína Varsová, and the legend of Czech street art Jan Kaláb, and tasked them with creating design tiles. These were subsequently sent to leading European ceramics factories - REFIN (IT), Normandy ceramics (FR), MADE A MANO (IT), and INALCO (ES).

And they didn't forget about motivation either. The author of the best tile design will receive 1500 euros and the production of an entire collection at a selected Italian ceramics company. A jury composed of artists, investors, and manufacturers of design products, including jeweler Eva Eisler and design theorist Adam Štěch, will meet on Thursday, May 21.

„In the market, a single philosophy prevails across the industry – to produce as much as possible of something that brings profit to the producer. This is why an extreme number of trends arise. We want International Tile Day to show that trends are one thing, but ceramics have a lasting value and need not yield to trends,” says Petr Kunt from Archtiles, hoping that International Tile Day will bring new design collections with global potential.

PROGRAM MAY 21:

11:00 AM - 6:00 PM | VIEWING OF COMPETITIVE COLLECTIONS OF CERAMIC TILES AND PAVING

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM | PETR HOFFELNER (PHOTOGRAPHER)
Workshop for architects, students, and designers on the topic
"How to capture the beauty of details and wholes in realized interiors with a camera"

4:30 PM - 5:00 PM | MASSIMO MERELLO (RAGNO)
Workshop on the topic of the development of ceramics from the beginning to the present

5:10 PM - 5:40 PM | TAKASHI HIRAI (CASALGRANDE PADANA)
Lecture on the revolutionary "SELF CLEANING" surface for tiles

5:50 PM - 6:20 PM | PAOLO DALLARI (MUTINA)
Presentation of new series from world-renowned designers

6:30 PM - 7:30 PM | ENG. HANA KOTOROVÁ (TECHNICAL TESTING INSTITUTE PLZEŇ)
Workshop on tiles, paving, and technical standards