Marble and design

Marble building and furnishing

The marble, as well as in purely artistic field, has always been one of the most used materials in construction and furniture, and as cladding for walls and floors both as a material for the realization of the tops and bases for tables, coffee tables and lamps, is, again, to make decorative items for the whole house.

It is for this reason that study processes also alternatives to classic has always been a goal of many designers and companies in the industry, to allow even more versatility for this material typical of Italian culture.

Carrara marble and design

If it is the art contaminating design or the reverse is an interesting question to which the designer Enzo Berti tries to give an answer with his creations with the Carrara marble: Grande Osservatore, Genesi and Transizioni. These are creations presented at the Project DES.ART to celebrate 50 years of the company Decormarmi and born from the fervent mind of this artist/ designer who explores a land where art and design come together and influence each other as mutually contaminate for creativity, techniques and materials.

The final object that results is, in each case, characterized by a high component both artistic design, although the interpretation codes remain distinct for each of the two, call them, sectors.

In this case the company Decormarmi on one side and the other designers fielding their respective capabilities in terms of creativity and production techniques and workmanship to give life to a real laboratory of ideas for unique products or intended to the industrial production, as happens for the brand Kreoo.

The three works I mention are real experimental projects, prototypes, to give life, later, to collections of furniture: it is, in short, a new formal languages reinterpreted through innovative technological production processes, without neglecting the classical sculptural techniques typical for this material and in particular Decormarmi. Designer and company together.

Grande Osservatore is a piece of decorative furniture whose theme is an extension of the human eye looking at the sky: two conical shapes that are joined by the top and become a unique architectural body, lacquering inside the blue cone biggest highlights the idea of the night that surrounds the human being who looks at the starry sky.


Genesi, however, takes as its starting point the egg, intended as a primordial form par excellence. The red lacquer interior, in contrast to the pure white exterior, is to represent the future life and emphasizes the emotion itself, thanks to the shape of the opening with a small but regular flex inward.

Transitions is the object of artistic design that describes ideally as geometric forms to take the body from other, without solution of continuity. On the contrary. Sometimes it is the same form that is not generated by others if not by the evolution of its basic design, in a simple and charming way together.

This also happens for water: when it is no longer free to slide takes the shape of its container. The inside of this object is lacquered in glossy green, to emphasize the boundary between content and container, which symbolize respectively the creative process generator work (content) and the creative mind of the work (container).

Marble in contemporary works

In 1967 the birth of Pibamarmi as productive reality arrived now at levels of industry leaders. His collaborations with renowned designers such as Michele De Lucchi, Hikaru Mori, and Philippe Nigro Manuel Aires Mateus have created innovative products in terms of formal and productive point of view in the strict sense.


Working in synergy with representatives so influential on the international architecture and design has led to the study and implementation of new ways of understanding a natural product which is, in fact, the marble, preserving its characteristics and exalting, albeit in a more modern. The result of all this theoretical work, result in varied and wide range of collections for bathrooms, living rooms and coverings for floors and vertical surfaces.

Art and creativity, creativity and love of nature. These are the issues around which precise develops all the work of the company, realized thanks to the designers mentioned above, along with others, such as Studio Snøhetta and Grafton Architects, which, in turn, contribute especially on the occasion of specific events such as fairs and competitions of the field. Many experimental projects were in fact realized on the occasion of the Saloni Milan and Marmomacc in Verona.


The naturalness of the stone and its aesthetic and structural characteristics are correlated with other primordial elements of nature: air, water and light. The result? Complete collections that recreate environments with a strong visual impact, thanks to the exaltation of the finishes of each specific type of natural stone used. They are produced with simple lines, yet are extremely valuable because they are precious materials and processes adopted, very innovative from a technological standpoint.

Escavo, design MA Mateus, is the bathroom collection that takes its cue from the archetypal forms of water containers: bucket, tub, basin. Objects elementary basic take on a more precious thanks to the surface treatment of edges, reminiscent of tableware and porcelain vases.

Installation plan is a collection of sinks and shower trays made of wood and marble, design Vittorio Longheu, with plans to drain away under the wooden grid. Hikaru Mori signature collection Stone likes water, created by the reinterpretation of the typical objects spa facilities in Japan, of which incorporates the pure forms and essential, albeit with strict surface treatments studied as a function of the use of the object, depending on whether it is a shower or a bath, or even a sink support.


The collection Saturnia by Philippe Nigro plays instead on the compositions of solid stone that cross, intersect, along with sequences of solids and voids that overlap and merge in a always new way. Basic Collection is signed by technical department Pibamarmi, and consists of sculptural objects obtained by digging monoliths integers cuts fluids, resulting in net shapes and plastic bodies, with chiaroscuro effects very eye-catching.