Bathrooms as art

How do bathrooms become art? Something seemingly so banal, so everyday, and yet so fundamental, in some cultures bathrooms are hidden away, while in others, they are a point of pride. Italy falls into the latter category: a country with a long tradition of ceramics production, and of course of bathrooms themselves.

The towering baths of ancient Rome hardly need an introduction, and many still stand today, as testament to the ancients’ love and respect for their stunning and often highly ceremonial bathing spaces. Today, bathrooms are much more private, but they are still a point of huge pride for many Italians. Some Italians even submit to square toilets in the name of style, despite the obvious drawback that humans simply aren’t square.

The country also continues to produce the world’s finest ceramics and sanitaryware. Ceramica Flaminia is part of this long tradition, stretching back to Roman times, and proudly displays its ‘Made in Italy’ mark as a symbol of quality and style. Italy is not called the home of fashion for nothing, after all, and even bathrooms find themselves affected by high design in the capital of style.

Ceramica Flaminia arose out of the labour movements of 1950s Italy, a labour of love, which brought 23 expert craftsmen together to found their own ceramics factory. At the time, sanitaryware was made mainly by hand, but over the course of the 1960s this began to change. It was in the 1970s however that the company began to experiment with its designs, bringing new forms onto the market and establishing a name for itself as a producer of ceramic ware of the highest quality, which today continues to be made in Italy by skilled craftsmen.

In the 1990s, the company began to push its design department, bringing Giulio Cappellini on as design director, and collaborating with many famous designers. Today, Ceramica Flaminia works with 22 designers from around the world who complement its internal design group. The brand produces a new collection of sanitaryware every six months, following the lead of Italian fashion houses.

Over its long history – the company recently celebrated its 60th anniversary – Ceramica Flaminia has contributed numerous innovations to the design of sanitaryware: bringing freestanding sinks to market in the 1990s for example; developing concealed hinges for toilet lids; designing the modular shower tray Tatami; and most recently, its goclean flush technology, combining cleanliness with high design. All of these innovations are a result of the company’s focus not just on technical research and know-how, but on Ceramica Flaminia’s belief in the aesthetics of the bathroom environment.

“Our company has a holistic understanding of the bathroom as a calm, clean, welcoming environment, and this is why we developed the goclean flush,” explains Francesco Bravini, the company’s Head of Exports and Marketing. This patented technology allows for a rimless, splashless flushing system, making toilets quieter, easier to clean, and more finely formed. By eliminating the need for a rim, like in traditional toilets, the goclean system means that the bowl of the toilet appears as a single, seamless form. This not only improves its overall appearance, but also its perception in the mind’s eye as a hygienic object. While traditional toilets have awkward, difficult-to-clean crevices under their rims, the goclean system does as away with the rim entirely. It’s a revolutionary change.

“We’ve designed the goclean flush system to revolutionise how people feel about their toilets and their bathrooms in general. By making the toilet easier to clean, we think that people will appreciate it more as a design object, rather than just a merely functional utility.”

Unlike some models of rimless toilet, Ceramica Flaminia’s design builds upon the company’s experience with numerous shapes of toilet bowl to ensure that the system does not cause splashing. The rim of a traditional toilet bowl is designed to prevent splashing and so when designing out the rim, careful consideration must be given to the fluid dynamics in the bowl of the toilet. Ceramica Flaminia’s designers and engineers worked for many years to create the goclean system, and it has been perfected through extensive testing.

And why do away with the rim you might ask? Simple: a question of design itself, as much as anything else. Design is concerned with both the form and the function of an object; its utility, as well as its beauty. Good design goes even further than these two issues however, and is based on an understanding of how an object makes us feel when we use it. The rim of a traditional toilet can make its users feel uncomfortable, because they cannot see under it, and so can never be entirely sure that it is clean.

For any object that we use on a daily basis, no matter how ordinary, design should be streamlined, perfected, and based on making its users feel comfortable when they use it. Everyday pieces of design that are frustrating to use, or upsetting because they are dirty or impossible to clean, place an unnecessary burden on the user. This is the definition of poor design.

Ceramica Flaminia’s goclean flush technology does away with both literal and metaphorical dark corners, creating a single, seamless surface, which is as easy to wipe clean as a sink. Indeed, aesthetically, the technology brings the toilet bowl closer in its design and aesthetics to other sanitaryware. Suddenly, sets can become more uniform, and follow similar lines and forms.

This innovation, available in two of Ceramica Flamina’s lines, and coming soon to all of them, is a revolutionary step forward for one of our home’s most crucial spaces. Bathrooms can only become works of art when the technological innovation necessary has been integrated with aesthetics; when the combination of design, engineering and craftsmanship come together to create art.

Ceramica Flaminia’s work elevates the bathroom to its rightful place as a room in the house, rather than some hidden corner, or something to be ashamed of. The brand’s work pushes forward the bathroom environment, to anticipate new modes of living with technological innovations such as goclean flush technology. The system ushers in a new age of toilets in Flaminia’s characteristic way: the design way.