“Pelle, Skin, Texture”

MARMOMACC MEETS DESIGN 2008

HALL 6, 8, 10
Coordinated by Evelina Bazzo

Partecipants: Mario Bellini with Minera Norway, Riccardo Blumer with Scalvini Marmi, Roberto Canovaro with Marmo Arredo, Aldo Cibic with Quarella, Michele De Lucchi with Piba Marmi, Stefano Giovannoni with Grassi Pietre, Massimo Iosa Ghini with Budri, James Irvine with Marsotto, Simone Micheli with Odorizzi Porfidi, Ferruccio Laviani with Citco, Perbellini Pongratz Architects with Testi Group, Marco Piva with Lasa Marmo, Denis Santachiara with Marmi Ghirardi, Luca Scacchetti with Santa Margherita, Claudio Silvestrin with Il Casone.

Marmomacc Meets Design was a hugely successful event at the previous edition of the show. Nine leading companies in the stone industry worked closely with nine internationally-renowned designers to develop furnishing projects emphasising the scope of marble in repetitive applications. Marble was thus transformed from a made-to-measure material for unique applications into the main element of projects that can be replicated on a small scale and through an industrial approach.

Marmomacc Meets Design revolves around themes that will be developed each year. The 2007 edition focused on “The Lightness of Marble”: a challenge to gravity and the very nature of stone. The designers tackled the topic with great freedom to interpret "lightness" not only in terms of weight, colour, luminosity, coolness and paleness but also in terms of sustainability – for example, by ensuring the least possible use of material. In fact, these designers played with stone and dimensional scales to reveal unexpected visual aspects and astonishing tactile qualities.

This year's edition focuses on the topic of “Pelle, Skin, Texture”. This is a stimulating and unusual topic within the scope of design, since it is often merely associated with the cladding of walls and pavements, or stone slabs used as furnishing tops. Yet this theme has not been fully investigated in terms of its creative potential. For example, stone by its very nature adds a salient feature: the distinctive colour and veins found in quarry workpieces - the unique origin of the material - can nevertheless be incorporated into products that can be replicated.

The effects linked with the variegated and multi-colour textures of marble, and with the relative traditional processing techniques, can become the starting point for the design of furnishings in line with contemporary aesthetics. Similarly, the interpretation of the skin theme can overcome the two-dimensional approach through the expression of plastic or three-dimensional features of forms. Like the projects involved in the last edition, skin can well become a synonym of sustainability and lightness, in contrast with the weight of the material, to blur the boundaries between natural and artificial.

The theme this year, therefore, emphasises continuity with the topic of the previous edition and with the primary purpose Marmomacc: to develop applied research into stone materials within the scope of design in order to stimulate new applications and inter-sectoral collaborations. This initiative, therefore, is not merely an ephemeral occasion but an effective and continuative proposal embracing the worlds of creativity and business.