Terrazzo floor is back, and it’s more modern than ever. What used to be a traditional Italian technique featuring a medley of marble chips set into cement, is now experiencing a revival with new materials, modern notes, and a new spectrum of exciting colors.

Centuries after solidifying itself as a true staple of Italian design, the new wave of terrazzo experiments with new materials, such as epoxy bases, glass, or porcelain, opening the door for innovative and unexpected designs using the old-age classic pattern. Sleek and monochromatic, vibrant in technicolor, finely textured or chunky and bold – let’s explore contemporary terrazzo floors through 5 exciting styles you can incorporate into your design.

Sleek and Chic

The revival of terrazzo flooring in contemporary design and architecture refined and redefined the traditional look with elegant finishes and sleek colors, supporting high-end modern presentations. Darker tones such as black and cool gray reference a more industrial style décor and transcend the classic Italian design to urban spaces with an edge. Smaller-grain patterns and new manufacturing techniques emphasize color consistency and a more even visual texture while maintaining the unique speckled pattern of the terrazzo. TileBar’s Terrazzo Italy Collection, for instance, combine old-world technique with a modern perspective on design, featuring the classic terrazzo pattern in black, white dark gray, and notes of coral to achieve a sleek look. The Bronte Nero tiles take this approach a step further, using porcelain to showcase a very fine terrazzo pattern, contrasting a more delicate visual texture with a bold blue-tinted black color palette.

Modern Confetti

As manufacturing technology keeps advancing, the classic terrazzo pattern gets reinvented with new colors and innovative shapes. Porcelain printing techniques reimagine traditional terrazzo in ways that cannot be found in nature: bright pinks, greens, and yellows step into the mix and elevate the terrazzo pattern to introduce a confetti of hues and textures into space. Colorful terrazzo floors provide a breath of fresh air, with the ability to define the color scheme of a space or seamlessly integrate with it, and porcelain is the ideal material when it comes to high-traffic spaces. The Six Hexagon Collection offers elegant terrazzo patterns in exciting colors: earthy grays mixing with pink, or blue and yellow elegantly dotting a clean white background. Giving an even more modern point of view, the Terrazzo Hex Collection colors the terrazzo pattern in mint green, pale pink, and pastel blue, making a design statement that can only be achieved with high-end porcelain. The geometric tile patterns add visual interest to the terrazzo designs.

Earthy & Warm

There’s a reason why traditional Terrazzo flooring roamed over the world of design for centuries: its authentic and relaxed ambiance captures the unique and coveted charm of artisanal Venetian halls and terraces and can be easily incorporated in almost any style or décor. Pay homage to this long tradition of design using natural colors that exude that particular raw and warm look that Venetian design is known for. Tiles such as TileBar’s True Terrazzo Collection bring an elegant terrazzo look using a mix of stone, granite, and glass, recreating not only the iconic look of terrazzo but also its durability, using traditional manufacturing techniques. But today, you don’t have to go for stone tiles to get the quintessential terrazzo look – advanced porcelain printing technology represents the real thing with all the benefits of porcelain. Tiles such as our Rizo and Rizo 2.0 recreate a terrazzo-like feel from a Ceppo di Gré stone to provide a classic earthy look that is indistinguishable from real terrazzo, while at the same time bringing porcelain’s supreme performance, longevity, and versatility.

Pattern Play

When most people think of terrazzo, they think of large-format tiles used for flooring big spaces with as little seams and grout as possible. Contemporary terrazzo floor tiles break the boundaries of what’s expected, introducing pattern play into the mix and creating new and exciting design opportunities. The Terrazzo Hex Collection, for example, does not shy away from pattern, featuring a hexagon-shaped tile that adds a geometric element perfect for a fresh flooring look using porcelain. Mixing brass, marble, and terrazzo, the Celine White Gold Terrazzo tiles represent the pick of innovation in terrazzo tile, featuring a waterjet mosaic that elevates the classic pattern to new heights of luxury design.

Decorative Details

While the terrazzo pattern can serve as a great neutral backdrop to almost every design, it can also steal the show. The unique visual texture of terrazzo combined with stylized patterns and decorative designs can create one-of-a-kind looks in bright colors and geometric patterns. Decorative terrazzo tiles take advantage of the quality of versatility in terrazzo, and elevate it to upgrade any composition with the classic terrazzo grain, creating visuals ranging from palm-beach glamour to ultra-modern urban. The Chips Fleur De Lis tiles recreate a stylized floral pattern using porcelain, combining solid areas with colorful terrazzo that work together to create a romantic yet relaxed design. The Bronte Collection experiments with this trend even more, incorporating terrazzo in unexpected ways. from modern geometric patterns to Moorish-inspired encaustic look tiles.