Roca presents the Roca Madrid Gallery

Roca’s new flagship space, where visitors can enjoy a unique brand experience, opens its doors to the city of Madrid.

The space has been designed in partnership with Estudio Lamela architects, providing the Roca Madrid Gallery with unique facilities and a spectacular design 

 

The Roca Madrid Gallery will be the venue for a range of social, cultural and exhibition activities related to the company’s values, such as sustainability, design and innovation 

 

Barcelona, 12 April 2011.- Today saw the inauguration of the Roca Madrid Gallery, a new space in which the company’s values –design, innovation, leadership, sustainability and wellness– are conveyed through user experience. The brand’s new flagship space opens its doors to the city and creates a social and cultural meeting point for Madrid’s inhabitants.

 

At the Roca Madrid Gallery, designed by the prestigious firm of architects Estudio Lamela, visitors will enjoy a unique brand experience and be able to take part in cultural events such as talks, debates and exhibitions covering important issues such as sustainability, innovation and architecture. It will also allow them to see some of the brand’s most emblematic products.

 

The event was attended by of Carlos Lamela, the architect responsible for the project, and Miguel Ángel Munar and Xavier Torras, amongst other members of Roca senior management. “For Roca, Madrid is a strategic city in our home and world markets: so, having this space here, open to the city, is a very important step. With the Roca Madrid Gallery, we are in closer touch with our Spanish distributors and, therefore, with our consumers. At the Roca Madrid Gallery, as with the other Roca Galleries, our brand’s values are conveyed through user experience in a unique, impeccably-designed setting”, explains Miguel Ángel Munar, Senior Managing Director - Roca Bathroom Products Division.

 

The Roca Madrid Gallery is located at calle José Abascal 57 and is arranged over two floors covering more than 1,200 square metres. Roca has redesigned the space using the services of Estudio Lamela architects, creating a Roca Gallery with a large display window open to the city. “The façade comprises three main elements that invite you to enter and which will catch the eye of passers-by. The first is the display window, which contains a large, 4-metre high heart, created especially for the opening and made of 3,212 small white porcelain hangers, and also a display of five W+W. The second is the continuous projection of Rituals, and the third, the frieze by the famous sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs. These three elements, together with its open interior and futuristic atmosphere, make the Roca Madrid Gallery a unique place in the city”, notes Carlos Lamela, the architect responsible for designing the building.

 

The interior is a unique interactive space equipped with the innovative techniques and tools to allow visitors to interact with the building and enjoy the brand experience. The Roca Madrid Gallery is a distillation of Roca’s essence: the brand’s values, its history, development, milestones and a selection of products infused with the Roca’s principal values, such as its commitment to water savings and sustainability, innovation and design.

 

In the coming months, the Roca Madrid Gallery will be hosting free temporary exhibitions. Some examples of these are Building the city (an exhibition of the Mies van der Rohe Awards, the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture), Aral, the lost sea (curated by Isabel Coixet, director of the documentary film of the same name) and The bathroom: a historical retrospective (which takes a look at the developments of the bathroom space and its importance to society).

 

Roca Gallery

 

The Roca Madrid Gallery is the second such Gallery to be opened by Roca in Europe. Roca Galleries are a global concept of Roca’s, one that seeks to create unique spaces for the cities that host them. 

 

Currently, Roca boasts the Roca Barcelona Gallery and the Roca Madrid Gallery. Over the course of this year, it plans to open two further Galleries: one in Lisbon (in May) and the other in London (in September).

 

For a multinational company like Roca, the creation and inauguration of these unique spaces is a source of pride that allows it not only to convey to society the meaning and values of its brand, but also to explain its history and recent milestones.