The Italian Stone Theatre - Marmomac 2016

The 51st edition of Marmomac, held from 28 September to 1 October past, included The Italian Stone Theatre hall for the second time. Once again it was the stage for initiatives promoted by the company in collaboration with international architects and designers. The limelight was clearly on the integration between stone, design and technology. The hall explored culture and experimentation with materials and equipment, falling within the Ministry of Economic Development’s “Made in Italy” publicity project that is also supported by ICE Italian Trade Agency and Confindustria Marmomacchine. Three exhibitions were on display inside, foregrounding the creative options that stone provides as design and technology progress. The first, The Power of Stone, was curated by Raffaello Galiotto and presented the expressive and formal potential of stone when creativity meets sophisticated production technologies. The display featured examples where the common denominator was complex surfaces, exceptional precision in the details, reduction of waste and the foregrounding of the characteristics of the various materials. The second, New Marble Generation, was curated by Raffaello Galiotto and Vincenzo Pavan. It involved a number of designers who explored stone as a material within the paradigm of serial design production. The goal was to highlight it is possible, using different types of marble, to create complex design products using solely machines. The final one, 50 Years of Living Marble, paid homage to the best Italian stone design production of the last half century. Based on marble items on loan from the collections and archives of both past giants and contemporary companies in the design industry, the exhibition compared stone production today with the craft products that were first made in the 1960s. The result was a stimulating view of the technical and technological progress of marble, with hints for its future development. Marmomac 2016 had over 1,650 companies exhibiting at it, from 53 countries (+10% on 2015) and 67,000 specialists from 146 countries. The new event, to be held under the new Marmo+Mac logo, will take place at Veronafiere from 27 to 30 September 2017.