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CEDIT: le ceramiche d’Italia che hanno fatto storia | CEDIT: Italian ceramic tiles that have shaped history

genuinely innovative designs by leading modern designers, responding to and

shaping the needs and taste of the period. It was the

first time a ceramic wall til

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manufacturer had set out to interpret the “year’s fashions”, by suggesting functional,

decorative home design solutions styled by artists of the calibre of Enzo Mari, Ettor

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Sottsass, Bob Noorda, Michele Provinciali, Joshitaka Sakuma, Bruno Binosi, Carme

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Grusova-Rihova, Gilio Confalonieri, Franca Helg & Antonio Piva, Ferruccio Bocca,

Sergio Asti and Marco Zanuso.

The result was “Collezione 68”, a one-off in the history of ceramic coverings that

was to usher in a new era in the industry. The major change was in the versatility

of wall covering design, breaking away from repetitiveness, with the potential fo

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building up a variety of compositional themes from a single motif; amongst other

results, this development helped to make geometric design and product graphics an

essential phase in the industrial production of ceramic materials

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CEDIT’s ground-breaking work continued in 1970 with another key project

:

the “16 giochi a parete” [“16 wall games”] exhibition hosted at the company’s Mila

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showroom, at Via Verri 4, which invited visitors to reflect on new possible perceptions

of ceramic-clad surfaces, viewing the wall as a “chessboard” to be built up using

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wide variety of combinations

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This eclectic and very popular exhibition contained ideas by a select group o

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creative talents - designers, graphic designers and artists - including Sergio Asti

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Bruno Binosi, Severina Corbetta and Maria Grazia Caccini, Jean-Pierre Garrault

,

Salvatore Gregorietti, Gino Marotta, Franco Mirenzi, Pietro Monti and Giuli

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Buonpane, Bob Noorda, Ornella Noorda, Pietro Salmoiraghi and Antonio Locatelli

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each of which visitors could use to “invent” di

fferent possible combinations. CEDIT

launched a manifesto for a new approach to the traditional, static concept of the wal

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with decorative cladding: ceramic tiles were used like fabrics or movable items whic

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could be

fitted and removed exactly as preferred, in response to the visitor’s curren

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taste or instinct for play

.

This exhibition project reinforced the company’s conviction that partnerships

with creative talents could be a successful strategy for continual promotion of the

product’s market visibility. In the past as in the present, what CEDIT asks artists

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graphic designers, architects and stylists to do has always been the same, and thi

s

project urged them to view the walls of the home as imaginary surfaces, empt

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sheets on which they could express a revolutionary idea of design freedom and styl

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a vibrant interior in tune with person who lived there and his or her needs.

Marco Zanuso, Zanuso 32,196

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