If you’ve ever been lucky enough to visit Morocco, you can probably still recall the intense colors typical of the North African country, dominating both the natural landscapes and local architecture. For those who dream of recreating a bit of that exotic charm at home, where colorful markets overflow with spices and textiles, and palaces and hammams are brought to life with brilliant decorations, there is now an entire collection of ceramic wall tiles dedicated to the magical Maghreb atmospheres.
As the result of a passionate pursuit through research that has reinterpreted the decorative tradition of Morocco with the quality of Made in Italy ceramics, Tadelakt can be considered a full-fledged exploration into a world of exuberant hues and extraordinary visual effects.
The collection, launched by Cir Manifatture Ceramiche, was born from an unbridled creativity and a tireless pursuit for experimentation — an approach that Gruppo Romani, to which the brand belongs, has embraced as its prime objective. It goes without saying, then, that ceramic is the true star, a versatile material capable of infinite transformations in order to adapt to the evolution of tastes, not to mention a flexible expressive tool at the service of the continuous stylistic changes taking place in the world of interior design.
Perfectly in line with the production philosophy of Gruppo Romani, which keeps its distance from the most popular clichés and fads, Tadelakt comes to life from the combination of two different cultures, imbuing an excellent product with the high technology of Italian porcelain stoneware and the charm of ancient cladding techniques using the colored lime typical of Marrakech and its surroundings.
The innovative ceramic project from CIR, named after the Moroccan plaster from which it draws inspiration, expresses an all-around skillful balance between craftsmanship and design, reproducing the pleasant aesthetic effect — similar to marmorino and Venetian stucco — of the original brightly colored patinas of North African tradition.
Tadelakt, rich in nuances and shades, reworks the timeless technique of Moroccan lime used to cover the bath complexes of the Maghreb, sifted and polished by hand with river stones and then made waterproof with black soap. The contemporary translation of the traditional plastered surfaces in porcelain stoneware, obtained through painstaking and patient manual labor, stays true to the model that inspired it, proposing its most classic colors: white like jasmine; black like the mountains of Morocco; ochre like the streets of the ancient Medina, the heart of the city; red like a peppery blend of spices; green like a mint tea; and beige like cumin.
This explains the origin of Jasmine, Atlante, Medina, Berberè, Nanà, Summax and Kamun, a refined range of soft shades designed by CIR to bring all the charm of Levantine environments into contemporary living spaces, even at latitudes far removed from their places of inspiration. Each shade is articulated in four different formats, from the largest at 120x120 cm to the smallest at 10x40 cm.
The collection also features an abundance of decorative floral wallpaper effects on 60x120 cm slabs — Majorelle Mix Summak, Majorelle Mix Kamun, Majorelle Mix Jasmine Inserts — that offer designers and architects the ability to transform walls into lavish stages. But it doesn’t end there. Tadelak’s extensive and meticulously curated array of ornaments and decorations allows for experimentation with numerous original creative pairings thanks to the Nanà, Medina and Berberè mosaics featuring inlay patterns and color mixes, and with a series of glazed tiles that play with the pairing of tiles in white, blue and green tones specifically dedicated to clad refined walls.
More than a wall tile collection, then, but an evocative excursion into the folklore of a country overflowing with history and tradition, Tadelakt integrates the theme of travel, which we find in many of the projects curated by the five Gruppo Romani brands, each with its own personality: a journey that is not only real but also symbolic, inviting us to open up to new experiences and to discover stimulating alternative visions to the mundane — all through the versatility of ceramics.
