For the past few months, the company has had its own Roca Gallery in Madrid, an impressive, two-storey 1,200 m sq space. Called Roca Madrid Gallery, it’s the flagship store of this Spanish brand and leading bathroom company, thanks to its spectacular premises and ultra-central location in the Madrid street of José Abascal.
The atmospheric interior has been designed in collaboration with Madrid-based architects Estudio Lamela to dazzling effect. It’s a highly unusual space in a futuristic style, boasting cutting-edge equipment which allows visitors to ineract fully with the building. According to its managers, Roca Madrid Gallery communicates the brand’s essence: its values, history, evolution and main turning points.
As well as serving as a showcase for the brand’s most iconic pieces, the showroom will host social and cultural events as well as exhibitions reflecting the company’s values, such as energy efficiency, economical use of materials, sustainability, good design and innovation.
In the next few months, Roca Madrid Gallery will host temporary exhibitions open to the public, such as ‘Construyendo la cuidad’ (meaning building cities) – a display of projects awarded the Mies van der Rohe Foundation’s European Union Prizes for Contemporary Architecture – and ‘El baño, una retrospectiva histórica’ (the history of the bath) – which charts the evolution of the bathroom and explores its social significance.
Roca’s new space wants to reach out to the city – and be a cool hangout for both visitors and passers-by – as its arresting facade, on to which large-scale audiovisuals are projected, amply demonstrates.
Roca currently has 69 factories around the world and a presence in over 135 countries. Its Barcelona showroom, which opened in 2009, recently won American magazine Architectural Record’s prize for excellence.
Features: Bathrooms 2011
