Il marmo muta. That was the theme of Marmomacc Meets Design at the stone exhibition in Verona this year. It means the changeable nature of marble.
Marmomacc Meets Design was a feature introduced to the Verona exhibition in 2007 and it has formed part of the show each year since.
It is a collection of imaginative uses of stone from some of the world’s top designers who the Marmomacc exhibition organisers bring together with innovative stone processors. They explore new ways of using natural stone, often making use of the possibilities offered by sophisticated, computer-aided design and manufacture.
Technologies such as CNC workcentres and waterjet cutters make it possible to produce even the wildest creations that the designers are encouraged to envisage for the feature in order to explore the possibilities offered by the world’s generous resources of such a diversity of natural stone.
Marmomacc Meets Design is intended to inspire the design world to imaginative new uses of stone that modern processing power makes possible in timescales relevant to fast-track construction and at realistic prices.
For the Italians, who cannot compete with the low prices of stone processing in the Far East, it is an opportunity to demonstrate the possibilities offered by the value-added design and processing they can achieve. The pictures here show some of this year’s results.
Below are some of the comments made by the designers about their pieces for Marmomacc Meets Design.
Patricia Urquiola (working with Budri): “I hope to work much more in this direction. We are approaching marble with great nonchalance.”
Marco Piva (using stones from the Puglia Region and working with the companies Petra Design, Pimar, Stonemotion, In.Spo Marmi): “Four very similar stones from Puglia – ideal for being interpreted not only on the surface but also in their essence and profundity to highlight their visual, tactile and emotive aspects.”
Raffaello Galiotto (working with Lithos Design): “Stone from cladding to a solid construction element; stone resting on stone to become load-bearing, an architectural element for separation and construction of living spaces.”
Riccardo Blumer (who worked with Donata Tomasina while Trentino Pietra, the association representing the natural stone sector of the Italian province of Trento, organised the processing of the stone): “We must imagine stones as if they were vibrating, always in great movement. I enjoy narrating a material that is not static but dynamic. Marble moves… is always in movement.”
Other designers (and the companies they worked with) this year were: Flavio Albanese (Margraf); Giuseppe Fallacara with the Faculty of Architecture of Bari at the University of Budapest (Reneszánsz Köfaragò); Setsu & Shinobu Ito (Grassi Pietre); Pietro Ferruccio Laviani (Citco); Michele De Lucchi, Angelo Micheli and Laura Cunico (Stone Italiana); Philippe Nigro (Testi Fratelli); Snøhetta & Kjetil Thorsen (Pibamarmi).