STONE GATE – THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE – the exhibition

Stone Gate is the project designed by Raffaello Galiotto and presented by Lithos Design for the first time at the ’100% Gravity’ exhibition in Verona, for which designers and manufacturers were asked to experiment on the field of natural stone gravity: the circle is amazingly made of dry-laid hewn stones, each one weighing 5 quintals, bound together in a self-supporting structure only through compression. Stone Gate is 3,80 m high, 1,20 m deep and has a total weight of 27.300 kg.

During the exhibition, the visitors’ reaction were astonishing: Stone Gate was striking because the public could really experience it, as one can cross it, walk on it, stop by it. One can live it, try it out, listen to one own’s voice amplified within its diameter. Stone Gate is a magnetic circle that raises the primitive human instinct before huge-sized works, that is, the impulse to measure oneself, to feel hopelessly small.

Stone Gate often induces visitors to instinctively stretch their arms wide open, as if to measure themselves against the majesty of this object. And they become sort of Vitruvian Men, comparing human proportions, so perfect according to the will of Nature, with the perfect proportions of this large stone circle, as the circle is the archetypal symbol of the most perfect formal harmony. As a matter of fact, Leonardo himself with his most popular drawing restated how mathematics underlies any form of art aimed to reproduce the perfect beauty of nature, in the same way in which today it underlies the most cutting-edge industrial technologies to produce modular, repeatable, usable design. Thus, it is no wonder if this association of ideas between this stone circle and Leonardo’s sketch came unconsciously to the mind of many beholders.

This unexpected experiential dimension of Stone Gate almost puts this design work on a level very close to that of contemporary art.

Stone Gate is an all-Italian initiative, from conception to design planning, throughout every step of the production process.

Concept & Design: Raffaello Galiotto
Engineering: Alessandro Serafini
Partner: Staminal Stone www.staminalstone.com>/span>

Pictures copyright © Lithos Design S.r.l. 2012, except for:
“Da Vinci Vitruve” photo by Luc Viatour – CC License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/