Unique Bleu: interview with the designer

The Unique Bleu by Provenza collection brings stylistic elegance and versatility into interior design, offering freedom of expression and the opportunity to experiment. Giancarlo Macchioni, Emilgroup Marketing and R&D Director, told us about this collection's strong points.

 

What's the inspiration for Unique Bleu by Provenza?

 

Unique Bleu is inspired by Belgian pierre bleue, a very distinctive stone typical of that country: the vein patterns, subtle shade variations and graduated colours in its surfaces recount millennia of history, dating back to more than 300 million years ago, when what is now Belgium lay beneath a tropical sea.

 

What makes this series original?

 

With the Unique Bleu project, we set out to create a collection that would embrace and express the beauty of all the different types of workmanship carried out on pierre bleue. These finishes can be combined together to form a single versatile, original architectural project in which interiors can be "clothed" with surfaces that give them different flavours and moods.  The collection comes in two colour shades, Gris and Anthracite, and various finishes. Noble, elegant and minimal, available in the Natural and Velouté Semi-polished versions, the latter offering an additional variant with uneven edges, the Velouté Brecciato version.  The Roulée finish for a three-dimensional look with a strong visual impact, with a grooved and faceted effect particularly ideal for wall tiles. Renversée interprets the look of the underside of the stone, with the marks left by the cutting process, which become decorative marks. Ancienne is the salvaged version, also ideal for modular installation.

Can you give us more detail of what makes the Brecciato version so unusual?

 

The truly original, special feature of this collection is the Brecciato version, in which the edges of the product seem to have been “broken”: this effect is created at the end of the production cycle, after the ceramic surface has been rectified. This mechanical procedure is performed on all 4 sides and evokes the effect of split stone, with edges shaped by the mason's hammer. This finish gives the surface the natural, realistic look of genuine stone, enhancing the collection's expressive power.

 

And the Opus solution? What are the benefits for architects?

 

The Unique Bleu by Provenza collection also features the Opus Brecciato option: multi-size combinations, mixed and boxed together for variegated, extremely random installation layouts, which also look very natural thanks to the “broken” edges of this version. This solution is offered in the Noble Velouté Semi-Polished finish, with a rich assortment of sizes (20x20, 20x60, 20x80, 60x60 and 60x80 cm) to which the 80x80 cm size can also be added separately, to give yet another combination. The Opus solution is also available in the Petit Opus variant; in the Ancienne Natural finish, this offers a mix of two small sizes, 20x20 and 20x30 cm, with a running bond layout and the “brecciato” split-effect edges, to give dynamism and variety to interior designs. The versatility of this series thus offers the architect infinite combinations for covering solutions suitable for all needs and every architectural context.

01 May 2020

Magazine

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