Ceramic is the material most people already know, and it earns its place by being the least demanding thing in the room. The glaze is fired hard, non porous and indifferent to almost every cleaner sold for bathrooms.
What changes between a good ceramic basin and an ordinary one is the shape and the thinness of the rim, which is where the Italian moulds show. A thin rim reads as a designed object rather than a fixture, and it is the difference you notice every time you look down at it.
If your room already has a strong material somewhere else, a stone floor or a heavily veined counter, ceramic is the basin that lets that material stay the loudest thing in the room.
