A Tree Grows in Barcelona

Bisazza's new showroom in Spain invites visitors to experience an enchanted forest.

Sheila Kim -- Interior Design, 10/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

"The first time I went to see the new showroom space," says Fabio Novembre, design director of Bisazza, "the people there took me around and said 'Here in Spain, we have a saying: to give meaning to your life, you should plant a tree, write a book, and make a baby.'" In other words, initiate a creative effort. Inspired by the words of his Spanish cohorts, Novembre treated the first Bisazza showroom in Barcelona as if "making a baby," since it was also the first showroom to be created under his design direction, and sought to "write a spatial book with colors and plant trees in the architecture."

The designer's idea to "plant trees" quickly took form when he first visited the space, which had rows of concrete columns. Novembre supplemented them with additional stalagmites, rising from the concrete floor, to total eight "trees." To make the setting appear as a forest of random plantings, Novembre applied the company's mosaics in different color combinations (using all of the Bisazza catalog shades) and to different heights for each tree. A wall to one side was finished in green shades to further the notion of something organic, while the opposing wall was covered in white, with niches tiled in primary colors, representing the landscape of a city. "I wanted to bring the urban and the natural together," says Novembre, who also fashioned a third wall as both a blue sky and computer screenshot with icons.