The bathroom has become an increasingly important room in the home, one where ceramic tiles play a role that other materials have difficulty taking on.

The bathroom is now an intimate, more personal space associated with relaxation and pleasure where people are spending longer and longer looking after their image as well as their hygiene.

It comes as no surprise, then, that the space in a house that is turned into a bathroom or indeed several bathrooms also fulfils more functions, can be much greater that it would once have been and certainly looks different now. There is no question that bathrooms reflect the needs of people today.

Style and bathroom fittings have become more complex, can be multifunctional and are more aesthetically pleasing: baths can be designed to look like space ships, sanitary ware is being made in the style of real furniture and all manner of decoration is being applied to floors and walls.

What is more, the hygiene and freshness that characterise these bathrooms call for the use of materials that are easy to clean, damp resistant, waterproof and full of decorative potential. The material that best fulfils these requirements is the ceramic tile, applied to floors and walls.

The use of ceramic tiles in bathrooms both public and private spread at a rate of knots during the 20th century. It all began when hygiene and health became associated with a certain social standing amongst the emerging merchant and industrial bourgeoisie at the end of the 19th century.

From then on the bathroom, with its sanitary ware and ceramic surfaces, became a constant in the middle to upper class residential building equation and was subsequently adopted by more and more layers of society until eventually it became universal.

The introduction of tiles as a bathroom wall covering happened over a century ago, yet the tiled floor came much more recently, really only taking off in the sixties.

Since then ceramic has once again become a favourite flooring material, with both single and twice-fired tiles offering aesthetic and technical benefits.

Bathroom trends
The bathroom is perhaps the living space where the ceramic tile achieves its greatest creative heights. This situation has come about for three main reasons: low temperature and double firing decorative techniques have been retrieved, styles of yesteryear have been re-invented and new products have been introduced.

Right now, you can find designs ranging from the avant-garde to those inspired by history and everything from small formats put together colour by colour to large formats made by single firing, of which Spain is indisputably the world's leading producer.

The advantages of using ceramic tiles
The following are some of the advantages of using ceramic tiles, not just in the bathroom but also in other spaces, both public and residential.

Easy to clean
Ceramic is distinguished by being easy to clean, dirt resistant and resistant to any kind of contamination.

Ceramic tiles are cleaned simply with a damp cloth and should the surface be dirty or greasy, cleaning agents such as detergents or bleach may be added to the water. The very nature of ceramic surfaces prevents serious sticking and grease can be removed very easily. As a result, ceramic tiles are now widely used in bathrooms, kitchens, hospitals, laboratories, swimming pools, industrial facilities and so on, where they prevent dirt and odours from building up.

Equally, the fact that they do not generate static electricity means that they do not attract air-borne dust and thereby contribute to general improved well-being.

Hygienic and non-allergenic
Ceramic coverings' damp resistance prevents the appearance of germ and fungal colonies, something which happens easily in buildings where waterproofing is deficient.

Germs and fungi act progressively on certain non-ceramic coverings and can cause surface staining and inner deterioration. For reasons of hygiene too these organisms should not be allowed to take hold.

For this very reason ceramic tiles are being used now everywhere that is continually exposed to water: bathrooms, kitchens, industrial facilities, laboratories, swimming pools, building façades and so on.

Long lasting and easily maintained
Once they are in place, ceramic tiles need no maintenance other than normal cleaning. Because they are resistant to sharp swings in temperature, chemical and biological agents and abrasion and are tough and scuff resistant, they have a very long life expectancy in buildings. Newly fixed tiles can remain untouched and unattended anywhere. This is why they are being used prolifically in so many places, particularly on façades of buildings, in public spaces, shopping centres and walkways. In addition, they are fireproof and therefore inhibit the spread of fire.

A natural product
Ceramic paving and wall tiles are waterproof pieces consisting of a clay base with or without a ceramic glaze, which is basically a vitreous top layer: The raw materials used to make the tiles come from the earth and, together with water and the heat from firing create a natural, high quality product. Today, the use of these materials married with advanced technological developments means that a wide range of products is available that offer many benefits. And all this is achieved by using three basic elements found in our everyday environment: earth or clay, water and fire.

Inert
The inert nature of ceramic, in other words the fact that it repels biological life, avoids damage to the environment as once earth and clay have been fired they acquire the same properties as stone and similar natural materials.