Best of Coverings 2016: The Most Exciting Spanish and American Tiles We Saw

Yesterday we reported on some of the highlights from Coverings 2016, focusing on the Italian contingent at the show. Today we take a look at the headliners from two other major players in tile production: North America and Spain.

Natucer

Crossville
Newer photography of the moon’s surface, as well as images captured from the Mars Exploration Rover, inspired the painterly colorations and striations in the sandstone-textured Moonstruck collection. The honed, Cross-Sheen® finished porcelain tiles come in 12-by-24- or 18-by-36-inch formats with a thickness of 10.5 millimeters and in five palettes: Apollo, Gemini, Juno, Kosmos and Luna.

Crossville

Inalco
The main attraction at this Spanish brand’s booth was the super-large dry-press tile program called iTOPKer. Developed for use as tabletops and countertops, we saw it on display as a faux marble countertop with an integrated sink clad in the same material. The 12-millimeter-thick slabs come in sizes of up to 1,500 by 3,000 millimeters; offer high resistance to impact, scratches and low and high temperatures; require no tile joints; and are available in a wide range of colors, finishes and designs.

Inalco

Lunada Bay
A concrete tile series, Contourz features different dimensional units that can be used to form compositions ranging from a hexagonal grid to diagonal-stripe pattern or other intriguing tessellated designs. The collection’s dimensional as well as coordinating field and liner tiles are available in 18 earth-toned colors.

Lunada Bay

Natucer
With an artisanal bent, this Spanish company showed its amazing assortment of patterned tiles, some imprinted, some color-scratched on and some embossed via same-color glaze.

Natucer

Most of these intricate tiles come in hexagonal shapes, though there are also rectangles, chevron cuts (essentially parallelograms), elongated hexes, arabesque shapes and hexagons with uneven surfaces or thicknesses, the latter of which can produce striking tessellated focal walls.

Natucer

In addition to the patterned offerings, Natucer also showed 3DHEX, a faceted hexagon tile that comes in both neutral and eye-popping hues.

Natucer

Peronda
Three of the most fun designs came from Spanish producer Peronda. First, design studio DSIGNIO conceived an ingenious hex tile with a simple line and arc motif that can be configured and combined in several ways to achieve different overall patterns.

Peronda

In a similar vein, Bowl is a square tile with a raised quarter-circle relief that can be used in multiple permutations.

Peronda

And finally, Scale boasts varied widths and vibrant, neon painted edges, resulting in both color- and dimension-play.

Peronda

Saloni Cerámica
Cover entire walls or just dot them with Slide, Quick, Bend and Optic tiles. These dimensional modules, part of the manufacturer’s Up collection, offer sculptural reliefs that range from asymmetric facets to simple curves. The units come in bronze, white, black or steel and measure 5.8 inches square.

Saloni Cerámica

Wonder Porcelain
Among the concrete-inspired tiles we saw at this year’s show, Arcadia Porcelain was one of the products that grabbed our attention. Beautiful colorations, imperfections and raised textures create interest and movement in the surface of these large slabs that blend the look of cotto with cement. The units come in Taupe, Light Gray, Greige and Flamed Gray colors and in 24-inch-square or 12-by-24-inch formats. Bullnose, cove bases and corner pieces are also available.