NUMBER 11

The Grand Prix architecture competition was created in 1990 by Casalgrande Padana, a leading company in the ceramic sector that has always been particularly aware and interested in the developments and innovations that have affected architecture throughout the world. The priority target of the event was to select and award the most significant works every two years; works which were able to get the very most out of the technical properties and expressive potential of Casalgrande Padana’s refined porcelain stoneware tiles in the best possible way.

Possessing the very highest level physical-chemical performances and very lovely to look at, the products in the Granitogres, Marmogres, Pietre Native and Padana Piscine series are the result of on-going research. They can be used for both indoor and outdoor flooring and wall-cladding purposes, allowing designers to give vent to all their creative flair by choosing from amongst a whole wealth of colours, surface textures, formats and patterns to achieve innovative and customized solutions. This versatility is documented by the very history of the Grand Prix competition. For the past fifteen years, it has allowed the designers and their very different works to face up to each other, and has selected projects from all over the world. The competition has thus become an important chance for checking out the planning levels in the various architectural spheres. The original spirit of the event is not merely inspired by the promotional aspect of the material. Although the idea is to award those projects that interpret the forms and needs of contemporary architecture in the best possible way by using latest-generation ceramic materials, another facet of the competition is to develop the link between the manufacturer and the user of these ceramic materials in a closer and more profitable way so as to trigger off an ideal situation whereby products and projects targeting on quality and innovation are created.

Production culture and planning culture have always been fundamental reference points for the development strategies of Casalgrande Padana, which established an on-going collaboration relationship with the designer world right from the start. An important and significant relationship that has also been strengthened and deepened thanks to the Grand Prix event, a far-reaching cultural operation that has grown and developed throughout the years, reaching beyond the mere concept of a competition to become an occasion for constant comparison and verification involving topics such as architecture, design and technological innovation.
During these fifteen years, ceramic materials, and refined porcelain stoneware in particular, have evolved to an even further extent when it comes to both their aspect and performances. They have truly made a comeback as protagonists of the building world. And this is testified by the actual history of Grand Prix which, time after time, has experienced a progressive growth in the use of these products for works and constructions of remarkable architectural interest. In a parallel way, there has been increasingly greater diversification in the various fields of use, in the application techniques and in the ways that designers interpret the material. Increasingly new proposals have added to the first series, Granitogres and Marmogres. Ones not only able to stimulate the creative and decorative aspects, but also the functional ones. Thus the expressive, and not merely the technical potential of the refined porcelain stoneware tiles produced by Casalgrande Padana has been developed still further with the Marte series and, more recently, with the new family of products called Pietre Native. Meanwhile, new, increasingly larger formats have become available as well as special pieces, ones cut with water-jet machines, newer colours more in keeping with interior decorating trends, plus a wide range of surface finishes. The effects of this on-going research process that tends to improve the product and turn it more greatly to account have also affected the application methods. The fields of use have gradually become more differentiated and the planners’ attention has progressively shifted from the large surfaces of shopping and business centers, which characterized the first editions of the Grand Prix competition, to embrace all the other sectors: from public and facility works to industrial buildings, from special applications to curtain-wall cladding and outdoor paving through to residential building, which has given great impetus to the use of refined porcelain stoneware in all rooms of the home. Moreover, use of the ceramic products in sports installations, swimming pools, spas and wellness centers stepped-up to an even greater extent after the Padana Piscine division was established.

The architectural scenario described by Grand Prix during these fifteen years has pinpointed these transformations very well, not only highlighting the intrinsic properties of the product but also, and above all, its ability to continuously evolve and satisfy different requirements. Casalgrande Padana’s refined porcelain stoneware tiles are natural materials that can be rightly considered true “building components”. Avant-garde products that synthesize multiple concepts. Elements that can be used in a multitude of different compositions to satisfy a wealth of planning requirements: necessity and beauty, use and demand, function and ornament.
Grand Prix has accompanied this evolution process to which the product and its applications in architecture have been subjected and has confirmed its international vocation, edition after edition: over 200 works from twenty-two countries were presented at the 2002-2004 competition.

Similarly, Casalgrande Padana has cultivated and strengthened these privileged relations with the designers by promoting an intensive action to back-up the Grand Prix events. This has been achieved thanks to an extremely dedicated communication campaign with meetings, conferences and publications. Collaboration with Casabella, the international journal of architecture, is particularly significant and important and has flanked the company right from the 1998-2000 edition of the competition by actively taking part in the development of the Grand Prix project. In 2001, Casabella and Casalgrande Padana published a new issue of the Creative Book, completely re-vamped as to articles and art-work. Created as a means for professional updating and to help designers and planners in their work, 60 thousand copies of the Book were distributed as an insert with the journal. Since it enjoyed such a success, the initiative was repeated in 2004 with a subsequent issue concerning the 2000-2002 Grand Prix while the third publication is currently being prepared and will be distributed with the next November issue of Casabella.

Meanwhile, the competition has become increasingly more important on an institutional scale and has attracted a great deal of attention. So much so, the prize-giving ceremony is now held in prestigious and emblematic places, no longer in its province and region of origin: the Triennale of Milan, symbol of culture and research in the world of architecture and design, hosted the winners of the 2000-2002 Grand Prix competition while the awarding ceremony of the last edition took place in the splendid surroundings of Venice, in the seat of the prestigious Scuola Grande di S. Giovanni Evangelista.
But the company’s commitment towards supporting important national and international cultural activities has also intensified with conferences, seminars, exhibitions and publications about architectural subjects and design, activities during which it is always flanked by important partners like Casabella, various Associations of Architects (Milan, Bologna, Naples, Venice), the Domus Academy, Markitecture – Value in architecture, Assopiastrelle, Cersaie.

These and other, future initiatives are a fundamental aspect of the ties that firmly bind the development prospects of Casalgrande Padana with the world of design and building and, as part of this, Grand Prix is destined to play an increasingly more important role.

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