video © 2011 Roca & Saeta Estudi
Making of "Roca starts beating", Saeta's installation for Roca Madrid Gallery.
Studio: Saeta Estudi
Client: Roca
Producer: Tiempo BBDO

How do you show the world the essence and soul of your brand?  How do you transmit your commitment to quality and your consumers without placing a sale ticket price on things?  By giving them a gift, a gift that shows not only who you are but what your consumers mean to you.  This communication and design challenge became the central focus of Bet Cantallops and Pere Ortega of Saeta design studio in Barcelona.  In the pursuit to project the brand values of innovation, design and sustainability, Roca, a global bathroom contract and consumer company,  after the successful opening of its Barcelona Gallery in 2009, unveils its new space in Madrid with the collaboration of architect Carlos Lamela, who designed the space and Saeta design studio who designed and created the ''Roca starts beating'' installation.

Avoiding high level metaphors and conceptual impetus, Saeta's approach to the installation touches the human condition, "Roca starts beating" recreates a monumental heart composed of more than 3,200 porcelain hooks to form a 2 ton representation of the Roca brand utilizing the product's line primary material. The sculpture is powerful, dominating the atrium at 4 meters high and occupying 75 squared meters of the display window appearing to beat strongly into the city of Madrid. The heart displays great architectonic beauty, strength in numbers and most importantly, a window into Roca's brand.  The framework of the organ skins its shape in glossy white and reflecting spot lights create a dramatic effect from every angle.  The sculpture not only dazes you from beyond with its powerful presence but also pulls you in closer into the foundation of its meaning, of its message, of its power. Design has the power to convey, communicate and transform. This heart is not only a way for a brand to communicate their values to its consumers, or a way for the architects to show their craftsmanship and ingenuity, it is a symbol that demonstrates the power of what happens when people collaborate to unfold something new, unique and meaningful.

In the following months, Roca Madrid Gallery will host temporary exhibitions open to the audience, such as “Building the City” (showcasing the Architecture European Awards from the Mies van der Rohe fundation), “The Bathroom, a historic retrospective,” showing the bath space evolution and “Aral. The Lost Sea,” curated by Spanish director Isabel Coixet .