What happens when the encounter between the priceless aesthetic and cultural value of a material and contemporary technologies becomes not just a possibility, but a concrete reality? This is the question we posed to Ceramiche Keope, a company that has long been at the forefront of bridging these two worlds.

When it comes to marble, the symbolic weight is immense: its history encompasses  statues, architecture, and entire eras. It is a material that has accompanied the evolution of human ingenuity, becoming the protagonist of extraordinary technological experiments: from the special machinery developed in 1968 for Tobia Scarpa’s Biagio lamp to the sculpted forms of Zaha Hadid’s Luna table, marble has always followed, and often anticipated, design research.

This heritage was the starting point for the work of Ceramiche Keope, consistently committed to the dialogue between material tradition and technological innovation. In the Versilia collection, the company explores the expressive potential of marble, one of the most iconic manifestations of Italian cultural landscape. Today, thanks to ceramic engineering and ongoing research – carried out internally and in collaboration with academic institutions – this heritage becomes a contemporary, versatile, and accessible design opportunity.

Alongside the grey marbles already in the range – Bardiglio, Breccia, and Blu San Nicola – the project now opens to the most legendary nuances of Carrara white marble. The new variants Borghini White, Assoluto White, and Michelangelo White draw inspiration from some of the finest qualities extracted from the quarries of the Apuan Alps – Statuario Extra, Calacatta Borghini, and Calacatta Michelangelo – renowned for their extraordinary purity and powerful symbolic presence.

But it is in the “micro” dimension, where surface meets eye and touch, that this evolution finds its most concrete expression. Added to the existing finishes – Lappato, Structured R11, and Silky – Keope now introduces two new technologies, patent pending in Italy, that further expand design possibilities: ULTRAsilky and ULTRAmatt.

ULTRAsilky and ULTRAmatt, the new finishes from Ceramiche Keope

ULTRAsilky was born from the desire to redefine the concept of a satin surface, uniting sensorial quality with technical performance. Keope’s R&D team worked on the micro-topography of the surface, increasing the density of micro-depressions by 60% and accentuating their slope. A change invisible to the naked eye, yet essential to achieving a dynamic coefficient of friction DCOFwet > 0.42, allowing the finish to be classified as “Interior Wet” according to ANSI A326.3.

ULTRAmatt aims to establish a new benchmark for the visual concept of opacity by creating more efficient light diffusion. Developed in collaboration with the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, it offers a high-performance, anti-reflective surface that is also easy to maintain. Replacing a traditional matting agent with an extra-fine refractory material allows for a more uniform and natural diffusion of light: the surface appears deeper, less reflective, more balanced. At the same time, the homogeneous distribution of the micro-particles reduces asperities, simplifies cleaning, and increases resistance to stains and chemical agents.
ULTRAmatt is the ideal solution for residential and commercial projects seeking a sophisticated, natural, contemporary aesthetic combined with functionality and simpler maintenance.

In an era in which resource preservation and the search for more responsible materials play a central role, solutions like those developed by Ceramiche Keope allow millennia-long natural processes to be transformed into immediate design opportunities. Versilia and its new finishes are developed at the intersection of memory and innovation: surfaces that translate the beauty of marble into an evolved ceramic material designed for contemporary living.