TUBES

Established in 1992, Tubes is a truly one-of-a-kind case history in the radiator and heated towel rail industry, owing to the major focus on styling and formal innovation which has distinguished it since its market début, marking it out as a strongly innovative and dynamic concern in terms of product approach.

Tubes company headquarters are situated in Resana, in the province of Treviso (Italy), and all production takes place in-house. Made in Italy is one of the key values of the corporate philosophy, along with innovation, experimenting in shapes and technology, fine craftsmanship and superior quality.

Ever since the onset in 1992, the brand has demonstrated its outstanding ability to accommodate market requirements and interpret certain gaps that needed to be filled. Up until then, radiators were seen as a purely functional object that needed to be hidden from view. Tubes was able to fill this gap, focusing on innovation and giving rise to intense research and experimentation both in terms of processes and materials used, as well as from a styling perspective. Thanks to Tubes, radiators have become a styling priority in the definition of settings.
The creation of the Elements collection in 2004, under the artistic direction of Ludovica+Roberto Palomba, presents an actual revolution in the radiator industry. In this collection, the brand expresses a new concept of the radiator, turning it into an icon of design. The company invites internationally-renowned designers (Antonia Astori, Matteo Fiorini, Stefano Giovannoni, Elisa Giovannoni, Peter Jamieson, Alberto Meda, Nicola De Ponti, Satyendra Pakhalé as well as Ludovica+Roberto Palomba themselves) to reinterpret the radiator as an element of the architectural structure, brimming with a strong personality, thanks also to the customisation and modularity possibilities.

The Elements collection also came about thanks to a major technological innovation: the GVR (that is remote connection valve assembly). The crucial feature of this concept is the possibility of placing the valves up to 6 metres away from the radiator body: having removed the technical part, the valve and lockshield, the designer is thus free to design a radiator which no longer looks anything like one.

This basic format has given rise to genuine iconic models, architectural feature elements that have been included within the permanent collections of some of the most important design museums in the world: from the “Centre Pompidou” in Paris to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, and even the International Design Museum of Munich which was established in 1907 and can boast being the first design museum in the world.