Chapter 24 The Question of Whether It Could Be Better
The display panels had shown me how much difference a better way of presenting products could make. But the more I worked in the ceramic world, the more clearly I understood that the problem went far beyond the way a tile was shown in a showroom. Something was missing in the way our entire industry operated. Product quality improved year after year. Factories invested in new technologies. Tile sizes became larger. Designs became more refined. And yet the way all those products and all that information reached the customer remained almost unchanged. Architects still leafed through heavy catalogs. Dealers carried large display panels from one showroom to another. Importers worked with stacks of price lists that constantly had to be updated. Quotes were still calculated by hand. And at the slightest change, everything often had to be started over. I observed all of this with growing curiosity.
Not because that way of working was wrong, but because I was convinced that it had to be possible to make it simpler and more efficient. One question would not leave me: “Would it not be possible to connect all those separate steps?” I kept thinking about it during my long drives. In the evenings, I sat at our kitchen table and filled sheet after sheet with sketches. I was not drawing new tiles. I was drawing a new way of working. I imagined a system that would allow an architect to see immediately what a completed room would look like. A system that would spare a dealer from spending hours making calculations. A system in which colors, sizes, prices, and technical information would all be connected. Today, that seems perfectly obvious. But at the time, it appeared almost impossible. In many companies, computers were still far from commonplace.
A ready-made modular mosaic panel by PRONTO MOSAICO.
The flexible construction of the PRONTO MOSAICO mosaic covering.
To many people, they were complex and unfamiliar machines. To me, they represented something entirely different. A possibility. Not because I was a programmer. I was not. But because I sensed that technology could help people. Not replace them. Help them. Little by little, I began speaking more and more often about these ideas with Marco. He was still young. But I could already see in him the same curiosity that had driven me at his age. When we spoke about the future, he did not see obstacles. He saw possibilities. That touched me deeply. Sometimes we remained together for hours at the kitchen table. Often, there was nothing between us but a sheet of paper. I drew how I imagined such a system might work. Marco would then take the idea one step further. He asked questions I had not yet considered myself. Little by little, something special began to take shape. Not merely an idea, but a dream we shared.
Ready-made modular mosaic panels by PRONTO MOSAICO, ready for installation.
The stacked modular panels show how compactly the system could be transported and handled.
Little by little, something special began to take shape. Not merely an idea, but a dream we shared. For the first time, I felt that Marco and I did not complement each other only as father and son. We were also beginning to inspire one another professionally. I brought the experience I had accumulated in the field over all those years. Marco brought his open view of technology and the future. Together, we complemented each other beautifully. At that moment, I still had no idea where this road would ultimately lead us. I knew only that we wanted to build something together that would genuinely move our industry forward. Not to impress people. Not to become the biggest. But because we believed people deserved better tools. When I look back today, I understand that the first outlines of what would later become Piramedia were never drawn in an office. They were born in our home. Around the kitchen table.
From conversations. Sketches. Dreams. And our shared conviction that one day the future could be different. Perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about every great dream. It does not begin with a building. Nor with an investment. Nor even with a computer. It begins with two people looking at each other and saying, “Imagine if it could be better.”
Ready-made PRONTO MOSAICO mosaic covering panels, available in different colours and patterns.
My drive to improve did not stop at an attractive display panel. I worked on ready-made mosaic elements, modular floors, and systems that could be installed more lightly, quickly, and precisely. Not every idea found a market straight away. Some designs were ahead of their time; others proved too expensive or required partners I did not yet have. Even so, I kept drawing, testing, and refining.
The mosaic panel inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, made with my Dai di Più system.
In 2009, an international patent application was filed for one of my modular systems. A patent does not prove that an idea will automatically succeed; it merely confirms that something new was conceived and recorded. For me, it was above all recognition of a lifelong habit: looking at an existing problem and asking whether it could be made simpler. The real Renato was never satisfied with, “This is how we have done it for years.” Sometimes that attitude brought progress, sometimes frustration, but it kept me alert and curious.