INAX Revisited

I have been acquainted with INAX for many years. As a designer who started in a Resource Library, I have always researched and selected the materials used in ‘my’ projects. Years ago, I visited Stone Source in New York looking for something with a new take on the traditional subway tile I planned to use in condominiums in a pre-war building. Lisa Castelucci pulled the one binder of a product they were about to introduce and showed me a folder with brick-like-tiles that were about 1”x6”; immediately, I was sold on the undulating profile of those tiles, made in Japan by ‘some company called INAX.’ Started in 1924, as Ina Seitou Co, Ltd, the company collaborated with Frank Lloyd Wright on their first tile manufacturing facility. Through the years the company evolved. In 1985, the company name changed with the branding-along the way, claiming responsibility for introducing the world’s first advanced toilet seat, automatic faucet and a wide-ranging creation of living environments. This past fall my understanding of the company took another overhaul when I visited the INAX showroom and got a more complete view of their line of products.