The winners of the 17th annual Ceramic Tiles of Italy Design Competition were announced at Coverings last week. Held in collaboration with Confindustria Ceramica and the Italian Trade Commission, the competition showcases the ingenuity and versatility of Italian ceramic tile in architecture and design.
The winners were:
- Commercial: Karim Rashid for the Prizeotel in Bremen, Germany.
- Residential: Pentagram Architects for a house in Montauk that features beautiful Gio Ponti tiles, which had to be reproduced by Bardelli.
- Institutional: Ark Restaurants/Museum of Arts and Design for ROBERT Restaurant at MAD Museum in NYC.

Prizeotel by Karim Rashid

House in Montauk by Pentagram Architects

ROBERT Restaurant by ARK Restaurants/Museum of Arts and Design
Honorable mentions were also awarded to Denver-based AR& Architects for the LEED Gold UCCS Science and Engineering Building in Colorado Springs, Ilan Baldinger for Tempe Urban Living in Arizona and Yabu Pushelberg for Hudson’s Bay Company “The Room.”

Arizona Tile
Also at Coverings, Ceramic Tiles of Italy honored Arizona Tile as the recipient of the 2010 Confindustria Ceramica North American Distributor Award, who also set a record as the only company to receive the honor twice in the program’s history.