Colour Archaeology – The Miami Chapter
LAUFEN at Alcova Miami, December 2025
2025-11-14
During Miami Art Week 2025, LAUFEN presented Colour Archaeology – The Miami Chapter at Alcova Miami, continuing the global journey of a project that explores the ancestral origins of ceramic colour through art, archaeology and design.
Conceived by Italian designer and researcher Roberto Sironi, curated and spatially interpreted by experience designer Annabelle Schneider, and commissioned by LAUFEN, this latest iteration unfolded as a meditation on earth, time and transformation.
At Alcova, Colour Archaeology entered into dialogue with Miami’s luminous sand and sea, translating the city’s landscape into a poetic reflection on material memory. The installation evoked the act of excavation — unearthing pigments, stories and traces of human creativity that connected the past to the present.
Sironi’s research, commissioned by LAUFEN, represents the brand’s first multidisciplinary study dedicated to colour in ceramics. Conducted over three years, the project analysed more than 10,000 archaeological artefacts from international museums, tracing the chromatic evolution of ceramics across eight ancient civilisations. The resulting palette of twelve hues reinterprets the refined tonalities of the ancient world through a contemporary lens — from Egyptian Cerulean and Babylonian Sand to Celadon Green and Andean Purple, each colour embodying centuries of craftsmanship and cultural identity.
“The twelve shades of Colour Archaeology rise from the depths of the ancient world, carrying with them echoes of history and craftsmanship. They infuse the contemporary home with sophisticated, timeless nuances — a dialogue between past and present. Conceived in dialogue with the LAUFEN collection, this palette unveils new visions and new meanings through the language of colour,” explained Roberto Sironi.
In Miami, these chromatic narratives met the soft, sandy topography of South Florida. Through a sculptural composition of forms and pigments, the installation reflected on the origins of clay and on LAUFEN’s own kaolin – the mineral at the heart of its ceramic production. It became both excavation and meditation: a tactile study of how colour, context and craftsmanship evolve through centuries of human touch.
Following its presentations at Milan Design Week and HIX London, Colour Archaeology continued to expand across continents. This Miami chapter reaffirmed LAUFEN’s ongoing exploration of design as a form of cultural dialogue — where art, technology and sustainability converge to shape the bathroom as a living ecosystem and a space of creativity and reflection.
The installation received exceptional attention from architects, designers and journalists throughout Miami Art Week, with many praising its poetic narrative and sensory depth. The warm response further strengthens LAUFEN’s commitment to cultivating meaningful encounters between design, research and culture.
As noted by Whitewall Magazine in its selection of the best installations at Alcova Miami, LAUFEN’s contribution stood out for its conceptual richness and refined execution.