While much of the Italian stone industry exhibited at Marmo+Mac in Verona this month (25-28 September), one Italian company, Dudri, decided to make its debut just about as far up-market as it is possible to go with a stand at the Monaco Yacht Show held in Port Hercule on the same dates.

Budri presented Agua, a collection designed by Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola. She interpreted the colours of the sea in furnishings and surfaces in marble and onyx from around the world.

On the company’s stand was an ultra-slim Venetian blind crafted in Bianco Statuario marble, screening private spaces off from the lounge area. 

There was a lace screen from the Marblelace collection, an intricate fretwork in Bianco Carrara marble that contrasted with the marine colours of the ultra-slim Agua carpet in shades of blue and green onyx and marble.

Rounding off the display was a pair of white marble coffee tables with Algas and Papiro vases.

For 65 years Budri has specialised in tailor-made luxury characterised by high added value objects made with technical complexity.

The move into yachting from luxury residential, retail and contract projects was helped by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation Programme, which awarded Budri funding for its ‘Slim Project’ to development ultra-thin surfaces in marble. Being thin, it is light, which makes it ideal for boats, among other uses.

The “lightness of weight” was the company’s recurrent theme. It says it treats stone like a precious fabric, abandoning all preconceptions and reservations to break barriers and “enter the soul of the marble, freeing the wonders it contains”.