Check out the newly-opened Milan showroom of Ceramica Sant’Agostino, located in the heart of the Brera Design District on Corso Garibaldi.
The company’s latest and most iconic collections are displayed in large panels inside a space that is spread over two levels but is treated as a single “architectural box”, designed by the Calvi Brambilla studio.
The location was carefully chosen, in such a strategic location, to underscore the company’s commitment to maintaining its position as one of the leading Italian players in the ceramic sector. Founded almost sixty years ago, today Ceramica Sant’Agostino continues its path in the pursuit of creativity on the Italian and international design scene.
Taking inspiration from Franco Albini’s design for Line1 of the Milan subway, the graphic sign of the red handrail has been reinterpreted in Calvi Brambilla’s design. Not one, but two horizontal lines, architecturally rendered with dark titanium finish tubes, become the hanging supports for the display panels of Ceramica Sant’Agostino’s collection.
The result is pure visual effect with the parallel tubes running along the entire perimeter of the showroom ground floor and, from a functional point of view, enabling a very flexible display of the product: the tubes, in fact, allow for a variable modularity of the panels, adaptable to different sizes, but also adjustable in number depending on the presentation that one wants to display. The frames supporting the product can decrease or increase as in an evocative museum system.
Large display frames were designed to hold both slabs with a single finish as well as tile compositions in smaller formats to best showcase the solutions that the ceramic product can offer within different architectural solutions.
In the centre of the exhibiting floor, adjacent to the system of tubulars and wall frames, three “totems” take pride of place. These are compositions of different volumes and collections, covered in porcelain stoneware and enhanced with other materials such as lacquer and glass, which combine to create real three-dimensional mood boards.
The lower floor, designed as a more operational area, houses the material library, organised on a fabric wall system displaying the entire catalogue, and two large tables to explore samples and create pairings.
Architects, designers, planners, those lovers and curious about ceramic products will be able to enter this exhibition venue not only to view Ceramica Sant’Agostino products, search for the best solutions for their projects and receive advice and technical assistance, but also at exhibitions and events dedicated to architecture, which will make it a culturally vibrant meeting point throughout the year.
For more information visit ceramicasantagostino.it/en/
Photo credit: Luca Cioci
