What Kreoo is doing is the antithesis of industrialism. Instead of making things easier using machines, the company is taking a 180° and going back to the basics. Marble as a material has been a symbol of the elite for millennia (marble quarries can be found to date back as early as the 7th century BC), and for the most part of its existence, it’s been manipulated by tools held by expertly guided hands.
Over the past century, however, marble’s become more democratic. Machines ‘harvest’ marble from the earth, carry them to factories, where other specialist machines carve out the shapes in a matter of hours. A process that once took months (if not years) now can be procured for a couple of hundred bucks on some atelier website. What Kreoo attempts at doing is reclaiming marble’s rank in the echelon of greats. And it does so, not by using the ‘highest quality marble’ from the most sought-after quarry in Italy… but instead, by returning to tradition in a way that commands respect, just because of the weeks and months of expertise and literal sweat that goes into building each washbasin.
Designer: Christophe Pillet for
The washbasin’s design looks fairly unassuming if you analyze just the silhouette, but hit the dramadic lighting and you see the staggering detail that makes it so noteworthy. Inspired by the grid-shaped patterns found on the inside of the Pantheon’s dome, the Dawn Freestanding Washbasin employs a similar soft ornamental grid that wraps seamlessly along the side of the basin. Except it doesn’t end there – step closer and you see that the pattern has its own micro-detailing, designed to look like the washbasin was carved by a computer-controlled drill or a CNC machine.
I can’t begin to imagine the hours that must have gone into individually carve all those grooves to sheer perfection, mimicking machines rather than having the machines mimic humans. The texture’s left unpolished, while the basin is capped with two polished blocks – on the top and on the bottom – that complete it. Although not shown in these images, the washbasin comes in 4 marble variants – Bianco del Re, Bianco Perla, Bianco Carrara, and a gorgeous dark Nero Marquina.
The entire basin stands at an impressive 35.5 inches tall, and weighs 157 kilograms or 346 lb. Pricing hasn’t been mentioned on Kreoo’s website, but don’t expect the Dawn to be even remotely affordable. This thing was literally made for a different class of people – the equivalent of the kind who would commission marble sculptures for their houses in ancient Greece and Rome…
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