Design stone walls and the history of the planet

Further insight about “Pietre Luminose” design stone walls, which will be presented tomorrow at Euroluce 2013 in Milan, was provided by designer Raffaello Galiotto to our Sales Department during the meeting we had with him last week, when we had the chance to hear him speak deep in detail about the inspiration, the research, the achievements that made the realization of this new collection possible.

We felt like sharing the emotion he was able to convey to us, for those who won’t have the chance to see in Milan what we are talking about, as this is not just a product you can like or dislike: choosing a “Le Pietre Luminose” cladding can be quite a matter of DECORATIVE PHILOSOPHY, much more than just choosing a texture or a colour, and even more than the precise choice of selecting natural stone rather than other materials.

There seems to be a definite trend in architecture and interior design which is going further than simply making a building fit in its surroundings; projects are designed in order to create a continuum between inside spaces and the outside setting they are plunged in, a precise will to take nature inside, or rather to feel immersed in nature and its laws even when you are indoors. Just a few examples we have in mind: the Mirador House Punta De Gallo by Rodrigo Santa María in Chile, the Chinese Coin House in Bolivia by Juan Carlos Menacho Durán, or the mountain house in the Pyrenees by Cadaval & Solà-Morales.

Now, this is what a “Pietre Luminose” backlit marble wall can help achieve in room design: to take a very deep look at and into nature, right inside a house, a restaurant, a hotel hall… even if your building is not blessed with a beautiful natural landscape around it. Let’s think of Carrara Ghiaccio marble, one of the materials we selected for the project: its layers tell the history of the mountains where it is quarried, its greyish veins were formed by the deposit, decomposition and transformation of shellfish living an uncountable number of years ago… Have you ever thought of marble as of something bearing life inside? This is actually what a natural material is, and this is why no slab or tile can be the same as another one; holes, intrusions, fossils and veins are no bug, they constitute its real beauty and interest. But so far, we were contented to see all this revealed on a honed or polished SURFACE. And certainly, we were accustomed to see light pass through ultrathin onyx slabs, or even alabaster in ancient times. But what about old, thick, massive marble… A material which is a symbol of hardness and impenetrability. If you could, wouldn’t you defy its hardness and take the chance to see also through it, to penetrate it with your own eyes and unveil its secrets and its story as if seeing it at a microscope, or as if swimming in it like in a honey-thick liquid… but without any effort? Backlight applied to marbles with peculiar translucent properties allows precisely this. A three-dimensional processing of the surface permits to go into the material to some extent, but backlight combined with a smart engraving design lets you see all through it, and lets you discover and enjoy completely its composition, its astonishing intimate variations of colour and texture, the intertwined paths written inside it by its veins. A real sensory experience, a journey into the history of the planet and of its formation, that we will be delighted to guide you to.