THE PRINCIPLE

OF COVERINGS

GABRIELE MASTRIGLI

Architect and critic

“It is the architect’s task to create a warm, livable space. Carpets

are warm and livable. He decides for this reason to spread one carpet

on the floor and to hang up four to form the four walls. But you cannot

build a house out of carpets. Both the carpet and the floor and the

tapestry on the wall required structural frame to hold them in the

correct place. To invent this frame is the architect’s second task.” When

Adolf Loos wrote his revolutionary essay on the “principle of cladding”

in 1898, architecture was just entering the modern age. Building meant

imagining structures capable of putting together different materials,

but, Loos affirmed, it must also respect their individual characteristics.

“Every material possesses a formal language which belongs to it

alone and no material can take on the forms proper to another”, the

Austrian master therefore maintained. And there is no doubt that the

spirit of these words extended throughout most Twentieth Century

architecture, regardless of its location or style. When we look at Matteo

Nunziati’s designs for the CEDIT Tesori collection, we seem to be seeing

geometrical purity and attention to detail at the service of a new “truth”

of material. Because Matteo Nunziati views ceramics as a form of fabric.

The woven patterns he imagines for the various styles in his collection –

from Arabian to damask to more geometrical motifs – constantly seek

to provide the soft, iridescent look of time-worn linen. In them, ceramics

are raised from the status of poor relation of marble to become a

luxury wall covering in their own right: almost a wallpaper, suitable

however for both floors and walls, and an absolutely versatile material.

No longer only for beautifying bathrooms, they can create new moods

in every room of the house (and elsewhere) starting from the living-

room. Naturally, the revolution has been mainly technological. The large

slabs produced by CEDIT are more than 3 metres tall, and since they

eliminate the serial repetition typical of conventional tiles, they generate

a new relationship between the surface and its decoration. However,

Nunziati does not use this to create, artist-like, a more eye-catching

decorative composition that emphasises the slab’s dimensions. Quite

the opposite; the patterns he offers us attempt to break down what is

left of the boundaries between substrates. In particular, the Arabian and

damask styles, in the version with “timeworn” patterning, convey the

TESORI

Tesori: note sulla collezione | Tesori: notes on the collection

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