Elle Decor draws inspiration from Alda Merini and celebrates the wood effect

Cersaie 2024: the trends for wood-effect ceramic coverings

Porcelain stoneware inspired by natural varieties of wood investigates new areas of creativity: brands in the sector replicate colours and textures inspired by inlay and boiserie techniques

By Marco Valenti and Laura Pastorino

“Wood is not a uniform term: it is a polyphony of ardent noises, its pitch that of leaves rustling in the wind.” These words of poetess Alda Merini express wood’s polymorphic nature: it is both a material and, at the same time, much, much more. It bears the marks left by time with extraordinary beauty and no two pieces of wood are ever identical. Its innate talent for transformation and versatility has ensured its use and popularity over the centuries. Wood has always been part of human culture, embedded in our lives, routines and homes. It symbolises the warmth of the home like no other material. It represents an ancestral legacy with which we instinctively associate concepts of beauty, familiarity, comfort and welcome: the idea of home itself.

So it is no surprise that, aided by technological progress enabling the creation of more and more sophisticated graphic surfaces that can reproduce the characteristics of any kind of natural material with extreme accuracy, the ceramics industry worked hard to interpret the colours, knots and veins of the most widely varying types of wood, creating materials with previously unthinkable tactile textures and relief patterns.

Years have passed since then, but the appeal of wood-effect porcelain stoneware has not waned at all; quite the contrary. In fact, it has grown hand-in-hand with the further improvement of production methods, which permit more and more precise replication of the original material, together with daring new creative ideas such as the inclusion in collections of tile sizes and decors inspired by inlay techniques and the ornamental patterns of boiseries.

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Native, a brand new collection from Ceramica del Conca, leads us on a sensory journey through the impressions inspired by the wood look, introducing us to exquisite materials and elegant contemporary interiors. The collection’s foundation lies in its four main wood varieties, Rovere Naturale, Rovere Oliato, Frassino and Castagno [Natural Oak, Oiled Oak, Ash and Chestnut], with natural shade variation, delicate veining and soft colours ranging from brown to beige and forest green, all effectively representing wood’s most authentic character. A multi-material combination is the basis of Feeling, a dynamic decorative series that mixes wood-effect fragments with the Terra background from the Bioterre collection, inspired by the warm, natural allure of lime and clay.

From Elle Decor, 1 October 2024 issue