Henraux - Marmo 8 (eng)

A RC H I T E C T U RE D E S I G N A RT

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A RC H I T E C T U RE D E S I G N A RT

MARMO Annual Magazine Issue no. 8, 2019 May Editor in chief Paolo Carli Editor Costantino Paolicchi Deputy Editor Aldo Colonetti Editorial Coordinator Eleonora Caracciolo di Torchiarolo Coordinator Manuela Della Ducata

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Roberto Bernabò

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Graphic Silvia Cucurnia, Thetis Editor Henraux SpA Printers Bandecchi & Vivaldi, Pontedera, Pisa

Translations Romina Bicicchi, Daniel Olmos Photographers Aker Imaging, Filippo Armellin, Archivio Bessi, Gianluca Di Ioia, Nicola Gnesi, Alan Karchmer, Kendall/Heaton Associates, Gerhardt Kellerman, Gilbert MacCarragher, Roberto Marossi, Angela Moore, Lorenzo Palmieri, Andrea Rossetti, Roberto Ruiz, David Sundberg/Esto, Miro Zagnoli

Paolo Carli

THE QUARRY IN THE BLOOD. AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANCO PIEROTTI

Editorial Staff Eleonora Caracciolo di Torchiarolo, Nicola Gnesi

Contributors Lorenzo Benedetti, Roberto Bernabò, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, Maddalena Casadei, Aldo Colonetti, Alessia Delisi, Gillo Dorfles, Costantino Paolicchi, Jon Pickard, Miriam Sleeman, Tom Sloan

EDITORIAL

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“Printed under the auspices of Henraux SpA” Registration no 3/2017 - 24/02/2017 of the “Registro stampa Tribunale di Lucca”

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Maddalena Casadei

EVOKING NATURE THROUGH STONE Jon Pickard, FAIA, RIBA

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Cover Nicola Gnesi

THE RIGHT IDEA IN AN ELEVATOR PITCH

DIEGO MARCON. CONVERSATION ABOUT LUDWIG Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti

A UNCE! THE LIZZATURA OF MARBLE, A LOST CRAFT Costantino Paolicchi

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BAUHAUS, STILL WITH US 100 YEARS LATER Aldo Colonetti

AN INTRODUCTION TO STONE Miriam Sleeman, Tom Sloan

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INTERVIEW FOR TWO: FRANCESCO ARENA AND DAVID HORVITZ Lorenzo Benedetti

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SELFRIDGES PUBLIC REALM: URBAN MARBLE Alessia Delisi

BROKEN NATURE. THE XXII TRIENNALE OF MILAN ACCORDING TO GILLO DORFLES Gillo Dorfles, Aldo Colonetti

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BULLETTIN

BY PAOLO CARLI PRESIDENT OF HENRAUX SPA AND HENRAUX FOUNDATION

Marmo’s editorial adventure continues in 2019 with great vitality.

If I were to summarise this issue of the magazine with a single image, I would think of a timeline, from the past to the future, on which to arrange the protagonists involved and the issues addressed within its pages.

Time is a fundamental dimension for Henraux, a company that takes root in its glorious history, the ability to identify the trends of the present and to imagine - and create! - its visions of the future, the strengths of its identity.

Henraux looks to the future, to the most innovative approaches to visual art, the three winning artists of the fourth edition of the Henraux International Sculpture Prize, held in the spring-summer of 2018, brought a profound change of pace thanks to the fresh gaze of the new president Edoardo Bonaspetti.

Ample space is devoted to - Francesco Arena, David Horvitz and Diego Marcon - three interviews that examine the peculiarities of the artists’ research.

We find the same original perception in the dialogue between Maddalena Casadei and the two designers Sam Hecht and Kim Colin of the Industrial Facility studio who share with our readers their methods and projects, with particular attention to materials used.

I could say that the Architecture section is instead, completely grounded in the present with three contributions related to as many projects that have seen Henraux as a partner to important architecture and design studios around the world: London, Hong Kong and the United States.

For History, instead, are the precious observations of Aldo Colonetti on the centenary of the Bauhaus, which occurs just this year and to which we still owe so much, and the essay - wise and at times ironic from Costantino Paolicchi on the method of lizzatura.

Outside of time, in a dimension somewhere between past, present and future, the unpublished reflections of Gillo Dorfles on the current edition of the Milan Triennale are presented: collected last year, shortly before his death, they speak of an event that would have taken place in a future, which for us is today.

I close my brief opening remarks by paying particular attention to Roberto Bernabò’s interview with Franco Pierotti, a historical memento of Henraux that leaves us with an unforgettable human and professional testimony.

Happy reading!

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THE QUARRY IN THE BLOOD. AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANCO PIEROTTI

BY ROBERTO BERNABÃ’ PHOTOS BY NICOLA GNESI

Franco Pierotti, director of the Altissimo quarry since 1965, describes the charm of the mountain and the potential of white marble which, also with thanks to the activity of Henraux, has been linked to the world of artists and architecture and has become an important element of contemporary sculpture.

The marble of the Altissimo has a very dense crystalline structure and above all, it is a material that can be worked well despite being very resistant. It is a magical marble and to discover it you must know how to read the mountain, look at it with an expert eye.

Franco Pierotti at work in the quarry

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Roberto Bernabò: It is a great pleasure to be here talking with Franco. Henraux and Mount Altissimo are a piece of the life of any Versilian, but mine, in particular, because - I thought about these days before meeting you - my grandfather worked in Montecassino, one of Henraux’s first great works after the reconstruction, remaining there for more a year as a fixer of the Abbey. My father instead was one of the “boys of Cidonio”, at the end of the fifties, and then, after other experiences, he was here for a long time as a commercial director. So I breathed the atmosphere of marble as a boy, that air that is somehow sacred and majestic in the mountains. It is no coincidence that Altissimo is called the “cathedral”, because the ancient Apuans already recognized the divine characteristic of

that mountain, so much so that in La Polla, in ancient amphoras, the ashes of the ancient Apuans were buried, assigning a sacred role to the mountain.

And so I think it is not an exaggeration to call you the priest, since the beginning of the Sixties you are the man of the quarries, you spent your whole life there, helping shape that world. That’s why I’d like to start with your memories. When did you go up for the first time as a worker on Altissimo?

Franco Pierotti: It was in 1965. I came from the Tre Fiumi deposit and the Tagliate, I was transferred as the managing director of the Altissimo group. The first thing I asked one of the local quarrymen was: “What is this area called?” “Mortigliani - he told me - because once they buried the dead”. And in fact, to the right of

the Polla source there was, and still is, a Ligurian-Apuan necropolis, which was discovered in 1946, when, with the famous “Fanfani plans”, put in place to give work to the unemployed after the war, an attempt was made to make a road leading to the top of Altissimo.

This road, however, did not form part of the Mossa, so they arrived up to a certain point and finally, it was abandoned; later it was Erminio Cidonio - the managing director of the company since 1956 who in 1962 continued the road until it was almost at the top. So the concept of this mountain as a cathedral is correct, also because we have managed to get inside it, just like a cathedral. I would compare it to Piazza San Pietro: on the sides of the Altissimo, if we look at it, there seems to be a sort of Bernini colonnade that embraces the Serra valley.

R.B.: There is a phrase often attributed to Michelangelo that says: “The grain is united, homogeneous, crystalline and is reminiscent of sugar”. It is actually from the French engineer Louis Laurent Simonin in his research on quarries dated 1864. Simonin also argued that the Statuary of Seravezza is much more beautiful than that of Carrara. How would you define the magic of that white?

F.P.: It’s true, the marble of the Altissimo has a very dense crystalline structure and above all, it is a material that can be worked well despite being very resistant. It is a magical marble and to discover it you must know how to read the mountain, look at it with an expert eye.

If we return to Michelangelo, in his time it was very important to know ‘Il contro” (against the grain, or the hard way), ”il verso” ( along the grain, or the easy way) and “il secondo” ( a different direction against the grain) of the marble and the mountain. Excavation requires entering into the secrets of the mountain: it must be read in the same way as a book that can tell us so many things. It was fundamental then because the sculptures were not made with compressed air but with the hammer,

with the chisel, with the strength of the arm, it was necessary to know that against the grain a stronger blow had to be given, while with the “secondo” and with the “verso” one needed to be a little more delicate. It was crucial to know the mountain and the marble so deeply: because detaching a finger, a nose or an ear meant ruining a sculpture, and therefore enormous economic damage.

R.B.: A very important moment in the life of Henraux is between the end of the Fifties and the beginning of the Sixties, in which the then owner, Erminio Cidonio, paved the way for the relationship between Henraux and the world of artists and architecture, making the company not only a productive centre but also a cultural one. Expanding its horizons of action.

You lived through those years: can you tell me a little about that time? And about the relationship with the great artists starting with Henry Moore?

F.P.: Cidonio became the owner of the company in 1946, and for a decade designated it to be managed by the managing directors. Then in 1956, he decided to directly take over the reins of the company, and that’s when what could be called “the Cidonio era” was born. It was a time of opening up to other worlds in comparison to the classic areas of production, of crosspollination.

Henry Moore arrived in 1957 because he had to sculpt a sculpture in travertine, the Reclining Figure, for the Unesco palace in Paris. He discovered Henraux and was struck by it: he was struck by the company, by its structure, by its quarries, and so over the years he carved several works here. He ascended Altissimo directly, to the Cervaioles, and at least once a year he came to eat with us miners in our old building, beyond the gallery, called Palazzo d’Arni. He ate a minestrone from the quarryman, a steak and drank Chianti wine even though he preferred to eat with whiskey. Then I used to pick up ricotta cheese wrapped in beech twigs from the shepherds, on which he poured coffee and whiskey and ate it as if it

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Art

The quarryman was the first strike a hammer blow to Michelangelo’s Pietà or to Henry Moore’s sculptures. Indeed, in the quarry, during the Renaissance period, the blocks were rough-hewn and already made lighter, already taking the form of the sculpture that was then to be made.

were a dessert. Then, every year, we accompanied him to the Marmitte dei giganti (Pots of the giants, a Geological peculiarity in the Apuan Alps) because nature was a great source of inspiration for him. And the Marmitte dei giganti basins that are on the road that goes towards Castelnuovo, are among the largest and most spectacular in Europe.

R.B.: Several times I have witnessed you displaying the pride of the quarryman who first roughly cut the work of art, who extracted the stone from the mountain and placed it in the hands of the artist. It is a beautiful vindication to the value of a work.

F.P.: Everything concerning architecture, sculpture, all the great works made with marble, I would call them the ideas that are born inside the mountain: well, they were pulled out first by the quarrymen and made available to artists and architects. The quarryman was first to strike a hammer blow to Michelangelo’s Pietà or to

Henry Moore’s sculptures. Indeed, in the quarry, during the Renaissance period, the blocks were rough-hewn and already made lighter, already taking the form of the sculpture that was then to be made.

One of Michelangelo’s great roughhewers was Domenico da Settignano, known as “Topolino” (Baby mouse), who roughed the blocks in the quarries of Trambiserra especially on behalf of his master. He was a very funny guy, the only one who made Michelangelo smile, known for being a rather serious man, who had little time for joking.

R.B.: Which other sculptors do you remember? There have been so many, from Pietro Cascella to Henri Georges Adam. How was the relationship with them?

F.P.: During the Cidonio era almost all the sculptors frequented the quarries, but I remember Adam in particular. He had to sculpt a fountain for Chantilly in France, and the chosen marble was the white from Tre Fiumi. It was a

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Franco Pierotti at work in the quarry

Art

The quarries are extraordinary, they are sculptures made by man and should be seen in this aspect: the quarry is a carved mountain.

View from Mt. Altissimo

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large sculpture, so we took this big rock out of the mountain and then Adam sculpted it here, along with our artisans. In addition, Cascella did two works, one of which was Mazzini’s monument in Milan. For the material, he chose a bardiglio marble, which he greatly appreciated. To get it we had to reopen a disused quarry on Tre Fiumi, the Borelle quarry of the Piastraccia: then we sent our quarrymen there, and we re-equipped the quarrying area especially to do this work. Several years later Cascella came back to the quarries to choose the material and in the Cervaioles he took the marble to build La nave, an artwork that is in Pescara.

After obviously, many other sculptors came, for example, Giò Pomodoro, who was at Cervaiole up until the week before he died, accompanied by his wife and some friends, he asked me to send him some cushions. The retractor cushions are structures made to open and separate the banks and the marble blocks from the quarry walls. They had a particular shape, and since Pomodoro also worked iron, he really liked these cushions. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to send them to him.

R.B.: Now with Paolo Carli’s ownership, Henraux has re-launched a relationship with young artists in particular through the Henraux Prize held in memory of Cidonio. I imagine that many of them will have come to see the quarries before trying their hand at marble. What impression did you have of these young artists when presented with the magic of the mountains?

F.P.: They are very enthusiastic young people, passionate about marble, but also about the quarries. Above all, is our Armenian friend Mikayel Ohanjanyan who often comes to visit us even when he does not need material, and I think he is really a great artist, following on from

Henry Moore.

R.B.: So it seems the quarry does not remain only in the quarryman’s blood.

F.P.: Absolutely. Because quarries are extraordinary, they are sculptures made by man and should be seen in this aspect: the quarry is a carved mountain.

R.B.: I think that especially in the nineteen-nineties, the value of a company like Henraux was lost: losing what it had been over time and of what it had represented for the local economy.

The turning point that Cidonio gave to the company was like a fundamental lever to open new markets, to train a generation of artisans and entrepreneurs.

It was the lever that led Pietrasanta and Versilian marble to become what it is now.

Over the last ten years, with the Carli management, Henraux has progressively recovered this importance and this cultural dimension which creates an overall value for the territory. Here, the impression is that politics was the first to fail to understand or represent in the eyes of the community the weight that a company like Henraux has had and has once again today with respect to the territory. What do you say about this, as you see it from a person who has spent, or rather is spending, his life inside this company?

F.P.: The recovery was very important, the Cidonio’s Renaissance compared to what was before. Cidonio has brought Henraux to a new dimension and it is here that modern art and sculpture was born, with all the great artists we have mentioned. Since Paolo Carli took over the company - which in the years from the passing from Cidonio to him, had forgotten its dimension in the field of modern sculpture - has brought it back to great heights. However in the territory, at the political level, this change has not really been completely understood.

In short, during the last decade, the thread that moves from the great artists of the twentieth century to those of today has been re-established.

Which brings us back to Henry Moore and Henri Georges Adam, to Hans Arp and Alicia Penalba up to Isamu Noguchi and arriving at the young artists of the Henraux Prize.

Henraux is a company that has a truly complete supply chain, we start from the quarries and reach the plain to the beautiful place where we work marble, it is an environment full of art.

In short, during the last decade, the thread that moves from the great artists of the twentieth century to those of today has been re-established. Which brings us back to Henry Moore and Henri Georges Adam, to Hans Arp and Alicia Penalba up to Isamu Noguchi and arriving at the young artists of the Henraux Prize, who will be the continuity of the company.

Henraux will have to continue for another two hundred years: it’s too important for Versilia.

R.B.: The work of the quarryman over these last fifty years has changed

profoundly even if a type of mythology and perhaps a distinguishing sense of his mission, have remained alive.

Certainly, technologies have changed and security has increased. Even in the downstream workshops, technological development has been enormous, with digitally controlled machines entering the production chain. But besides technology, what else does a company need to be at the forefront of the market today?

F.P.: I like to answer you like this. He who works with hands is a manual worker. He who works with his hands and with his head is a craftsman. He who works with hands, head and heart is a Henraux employee. This is what makes a modern and competitive company today.

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Design

THE RIGHT IDEA IN AN ELEVATOR PITCH

BY MADDALENA CASADEI

From the choice of materials to art design, in this interview, we discover the ideas and identities of Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, the founders of the Industrial Facility studio Fucina Piatto Photo by Miro Zagnoli

that in recent years has won the trust of the design world’s major players.

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Design

Herman Miller Lino Chair Photo by Gerhardt Kellerman

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It was the last day for visiting the Castiglioni’s show in Milano. Sam Hecht and Kim Colin organized a studio trip from London, were they are based, just for that.

We holed up in the basement of Triennale inside the Biblioteca del Progetto, a place that documents the evolution of creative though in the 20th century. Perfect for our intention! This was an interview but all the more so, a conversation, so I decided to report it as blindly as possible, trying to use their own words for two reasons. First of all, because I would like for the reader to feel like the interviewer and therefore part

Maddalena Casadei: First of all I am curious to know how you picked the studio’s name “Industrial Facility”. As I know you personally, this fascinated me. People tend to use their own names or an acronym of them.

Sam Hecht: We started in 2001, so we came to our partnership very late in a way, because Kim and I already had careers in design and architecture.

We were very despondent about the things that were available on our own disciplines and we wanted to make things better in terms of experimentation

of the exchange. Secondly, to not filter or interpret what they are trying to express and transmit in an engaging and multi-sensorial way, thanks to their dialectic capacity which is not common for designers and architects. Industrial Facility is a bit like a mathematical addition or multiplication where the order of the elements is absolutely modifiable but if one part is eliminated the result can never be the same or have the same strength and intensity.

of ideas. We formed because we were convinced that there was a better way to work with industry.

But industry sometimes can be quite fickle about who they work with, because relationships are based on trust and it is easier to trust a big company with big things, than a smaller one made of 2 people, so we decided to choose the biggest name possible “Industrial Facility”.

The project is to do both our readings.

Which I think in the end is more applicable; it is not a one-liner. Because it has to satisfy both of our engagements in the project, it is going to be the result of both of these things, which I think makes for a richer project in the end.

Mattiazzi Radice Photo by Gerhardt Kellerman

M.C.: How do you organize your work? I mean do you each have a specific role or do you exchange and overlap?

S.H.: When we work with a company, the interpretation of what is being described and the situations are read completely differently by Kim and I. For example, a client might say ‘I want to experiment with wood’ and I would come away thinking we have to experiment with wood but Kim would say ‘no, no, no! They mean

to experiment with the factory, not the material.’ It is different. So we have a very different reading of the same request.

K.C.: So what is the project? The project is to do both our readings. Which I think in the end is more applicable; it is not a one-liner. Because it has to satisfy both of our engagements in the project, it is going to be the result of both of these things, which I think makes for a richer project in the end. It is not easy. Any project always

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Design

Sometimes a material or a process of making a material is presented to us and it is almost like the stars need to align and then it excites you. Those stars are several, for example – the price, the manufacture, the sustainability for the planet (it must not create a bad situation for the environment), or colours, finishes, textures and others.

Sekisaka Store Photo by Angela Moore

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starts with a conversation between the two of us. It is like our first conversation is still going on. It gets richer and grows. And we are never boring!

M.C.: You did work with a lot of different materials and often in a mono-material way. I think of Branca for Mattiazzi, Piatto for Fucina, Run for Emeco. Is there any reason for this? How important and at which moment of your design process does the definition of the material step in?

S.H.: I would say for instance with Herman Miller, who we are very close with, that we work with the material it is in a very different way. Sometimes a material or a process of making a material is presented to us and it is almost like the stars need to align and then it excites you.

Those stars are several, for example – the price, the manufacture, the sustainability for the planet (it must not create a bad situation for the environment), or colours, finishes, textures and others. You’ve

got these stars moving and sometimes a material is presented to us just at the right moment— it is the right one for the application we are working on. But then materiality for other companies, which we say are more artisans, like Fucina, is very different, because, a designer might say it is a huge limitation to use just one material. But I think that as long as the company has artisanal knowledge, and if it takes the role of the expert, then we can take the position of being the novices.

What do we know about metal in the way that Fucina is able to work with it? We don’t (and we are never going to) ever have their knowledge. But what Fucina is allowing us to do is to suggest things that are challenging and then allow us to define the collection from that.

What would never work is if a company decides that they want to work in metal but they have never worked in it before.

This is a recipe for disaster. So I’d say that it’s about the materials and how they are worked with that are very much

Design

Braun Electric toothbrush Photo by Angela Moore

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Design

Herman Miller always says to us “what are going to say in the elevator” about your project, going from the first to the fourth floor, after two years of work and you have just this time to introduce your product to the CEO!

Wastberg Pastille Photo by Gilbert MacCarragher

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tied to the scale and the ambition of the particular company.

M.C.: You have already worked with a lot of different natural materials, so the next step could be marble! From my personal experience, marble is incredible and extremely fascinating because it has an inner beauty. Now I know I have raised a point that can always be unpleasant for a designer and I don’t want to focus on comparisons, but instead, I’d like to dig deeper into your point of view and process. Your design seems to show a new language, close to the one of Morrison and Fukasawa but at the same time different. How do you see yourselves?

S.H.: That is hard to analyse from the inside. If you think about it, Konstantin worked for Jasper when Jasper was formally forming his approach, similar to when I was with Naoto while he was defining his work and likewise Kim with artist Mike Kelley. So forming ideas was an important point and an important part for sure. Because of that, there is maybe an affinity to a more common philosophy and less to a common expression. But we definitely see ourselves as very different, following our own path. Maybe you can illustrate this better than us?

K.C.: We really try to question what the project is about, and it is not always a problem or a need to be fulfilled, but at the same time we are very realistic so we understand how things are made and sold. We are interested in all aspects.

S.H.: I would say we build everything around conversation, where Jasper and Naoto seem to be very singular and very clear-minded in what they think is right and then they execute that.

But also our process is different… we do so few drawings! I always look at other designers great drawings, admiring the quantity of sketches! We don’t sketch so much, actually we make a lot of models. But I think the project has to be articulated as much in words as in vision. For us, words are super important because when I describe something to you, and you feel the result

of the experience, it means I centred the point. The art of conversation between everyone in the studio is in someway the bedrock and the filter for what works and what doesn’t.

M.C.: It reminds me of the Castiglioni approach and his conviction that if you cannot explain your project on the telephone it is not a good project.

K.C.: Herman Miller always says to us “what are going to say in the elevator” about your project, going from the first to the fourth floor, after two years of work and you have just this time to introduce your product to the CEO! M.C.: At the moment you have never collaborated with a design gallery. Is this a decision you make for any specific reason or has it just not happened yet?

K.C.: This is a part of design that we have been watching so far. Actually, we recently discussed it again, looking at some pieces by Marc Newson for Gagosian. He somehow epitomises the success of the market for design pieces and we were asking ourselves what defines his pieces as ‘design-art’ and why not other design pieces that we feel are weaker. I think people don’t associate this area with us because we are seen as very practical, which we are!

S.H.: It is tricky because the art side has a message you need to convey and it can’t involve any compromise (otherwise it is not art). So if you need to use blood you use real blood, you can’t use something else because of the cost not being viable. That’s what makes it art. But design by nature is built around compromises because you are dealing with the factory, with the distribution, with price…. problems and needs. This is the reality of things which an artist would never really need to consider. So a designer by default is someone who is navigating through that complexity and arriving at something that is magical, joyful, beautiful and clever. So what is design-art? What is it sold as? Where is the market for it? I really don’t know!

Design

Wastberg Pastille Photo by Gilbert MacCarragher

M.C.: I am not now thinking of galleries who pretend to sell design as art, so where design completely loses its functionality and reason to exist or where art loses its freedom to be. I am thinking more of galleries that sell on one side modern furniture and on the other make new collaborations with contemporary designers.

K. C.: Yes we have thought about it. So far it hasn’t been a natural fit but it could be an interesting challenge. For instance, it could be an immersive material experience or process that we haven’t worked with before.

S. H.: If we are talking of a design gallery it is different because it can deal with everyday objects. Design galleries are all about expressing processes, pieces of experimentation, thoughts that have passed through a designer’s mind. We have never been asked. But at the same time, I don’t think that Jean Prouvé was asked either. It just happened with his works. Anyway, it worked the other way. Donald Judd was an artist and he made furniture and it worked,

but going from designer to art… I have to say I don’t know enough about it. Marc Newson successfully found a way to sell his work as art, probably because there is zero compromise. It is with the same gallery which is doing Richard Serra, who can’t have a single piece of compromise. It is made to the exact ambition that has been set.

K.C.: It is really authored work. Is impossible for us to understand how it is driven by economics. I worry that what we see is the art market looking for different stuff.

S.H.: Anyway, we haven’t closed the door on new experiences, we just haven’t been asked yet.

So as Castiglioni said: “I am glad to find some of my design pieces in some museum, with my name on it, but I prefer to find those objects in a normal house, in the right place, with people that use them like always existed things, without knowing I designed them, even more without knowing that there are people who design objects!”

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Architecture

EVOKING NATURE THROUGH STONE

BY JON PICKARD, FAIA, RIBA

From the Devon Energy Center in Oklahoma City, to Phoenix’s 24th at Camelback. From ExxonMobil’s Global Headquarters in Texas, to River Point in Chicago: in the twenty-two-year career of the Pickard Chilton studio, stone becomes a figure with a particular architectural ability to express elegance and ancestral memory.

As architects, we endeavor to create for our clients idealized worlds, perfect microcosms in which people can safely and comfortably live and work.

In the past 22 years, virtually every building crafted by Pickard Chilton has incorporated architectural stone as an important feature. Stone is relied upon for its elegance but also for its ability connect to a deeper part of our being, an unconscious link to our primal past.

Having lived in harmony with nature among the savannahs, prairies, forests and mountains, humans over millennia have developed a compelling, instinctual connection to our natural environment.

We are inherently drawn to the fractal

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patterns of water, flora, and stone. This extraordinary link is recognized as the science of biophilia.

In our careers, Pickard Chilton principals William Chilton, Anthony Markese, and Jon Pickard have cumulatively created over 200 projects – nearly all embracing some element of stone for its beauty and its connection to the natural world.

In collaboration with Paolo Carli and Massimo Serni of Henraux, we have realized numerous successful buildings, most recently 1144 Fifteenth Street in Denver, Colorado, and Amegy Bank in Houston, Texas. Four additional projects are detailed below.

Left, 1144 Fifteenth Street, Denver Photo by David Sundberg/Esto Amegy Bank, Houston Photo by Aker Imaging

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Architecture

Devon Energy Center The Devon Energy Center underscores the axiom that an architect is incapable of creating a great building without an inspired client. Pickard Chilton was commissioned in 2008 to design Devon Energy’s new headquarters in Oklahoma City. Chairman and CEO Larry Nichols led the project in partnership with his Executive Vice President, Klay Kimker. The quintessential renaissance man, Mr. Nichols was educated at elite universities, a highly accomplished attorney (former US Supreme Court clerk), and, fortuitously for the project, a geology major with a deep knowledge and passion for stone, which he brought to bear to the benefit of the project.

Devon Energy Center incorporates sixteen different stones. Henraux collaborated with our stone advisors and the design team to identify potential stones from around the world. The public space is defined by Kashmir White granite on the floor and by Calacatta Caldia marble on the walls.

Kashmir White was selected for its strength, lack of porosity, warmth and visual consistency. Calacatta Caldia delivers a pure white field with accents of soft ochre and grey veins. Together, the stones exude a sense of calm in the generously scaled public space.

For a prominent two-story wall that sweeps through the public space, we sought to identify a visually dynamic stone. We ultimately selected Desert Sandstone, an extraordinary stone quarried in India that is exceedingly “active” and has a leather finish. While all of the surfaces within the Devon Energy Center were important and required dry laying, this feature wall was of exceptional importance and required multiple dry lays. Using Henraux’s gantry crane perched 15 meters above due to the dry lay’s large size, many hours were spent shuffling the vein-cut stone until the ideal visual aesthetic was found, visually connecting the veins to flow seamlessly from slab to slab.

While the effort resulted in a stunning sandstone wall, it also offers a more

visceral connection - standing before it is akin to being in the stone canyons of Petra. We recognize its beauty but at the same time feel a compelling connection with our past.

24th at Camelback In 1997, Pickard Chilton was retained to design 24th at Camelback in Phoenix, Arizona. Among the firm’s first commissions, it was also the firm’s first commission for Hines – arguably the most respected real estate organization in the world. As such, we were highly motivated to create the best building that the budget would permit. The Phoenix commercial office market at that time did not easily substantiate a Hines/Pickard Chilton quality building and the idea of using stone in a meaningful way was considered a reach. Consequently, we designed a simple yet elegant horizontal precast window-wall assembly. When the buy was executed, Henraux was able to supply the very attractive Rosa Beta granite for a fair price. Hines elected to invest in the granite enclosure to substantiate anticipated rents. Six years after the building’s completion, its sale

by Hines established a record in the Phoenix commercial office market.

ExxonMobil Global Headquarters Following an international competition, ExxonMobil selected Pickard Chilton to design their global headquarters and consolidate their key business units into one campus for approximately 10,000 employees. Aiming to craft a work place that would foster social connections and collaboration, we endeavored to create a humane environment that would simultaneously express technological sophistication. The ExxonMobil culture’s deep respect for the riches of the earth informed us that stone must be integral to any design.

The exterior enclosure strategy illustrates this balance between nature and technology. The warmth of the stone unites with stainless steel and transparent highperformance glass to protect employees while connecting them to nature and

Henraux was able to supply the very attractive Rosa Beta granite for a fair price. Hines elected to invest in the granite enclosure to substantiate anticipated rents.

Six years after the building’s completion, its sale

by Hines established a record in the Phoenix commercial office market.

Top, 24th at Camelback, Phoenix Photo by Kendall/Heaton Associates Left, Devon Energy Center, Oklahoma City Photo by Alan Karchmer

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The exterior enclosure strategy illustrates this balance between nature and technology. The warmth of the stone unites with stainless steel and transparent high-performance glass to protect employees while connecting them to nature and sunlight.

Top, ExxonMobil Energy Center, Houston Photo by David Sundberg/Esto Right, ExxonMobil Office Building, Houston Photo byAker Imaging

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sunlight. Many potential cladding stones were considered but Roman Travertine was ultimately selected for its classic, timeless beauty and value. Travertine is used throughout the campus to promote a visual unity and harmony. On the interiors, the concept of unity was maintained. Most floors in the public spaces are clad with Jura limestone which was selected for its strength, durability, and compatibility with the campus palette.

As the campus is very large, it was organized into four themed precincts: Energy (East/Red); Nature (North/ Green); Wellness (West/Blue); and, Science (South/Silver). To visually enrich the campus and facilitate circulation, four special stones were selected to represent each precinct: East - Red Travertine; North - Verde Bamboo; West - Azul Bahia; and, South - Ocean Black Travertine. Each accent stone is installed as a monumental four-story bay to designate the building entrance and modulate the public space.

Principal Anthony Markese conceived a novel design accent to enhance each building while heralding the idiosyncratic beauty of stone. He identified focal points within each building and carefully selected a stone slab or “stone painting” for each. From hundreds of stones, he personally curated the “stone paintings”, selecting only the most extraordinary.

River Point River Point occupies a highly visible, triangular site at the confluence of the Chicago Rivers in downtown Chicago.

The site’s unique geometry influenced its sculptural form, the public plaza and the lobby’s use of stone. As a monumental obelisk, its striking silhouette marks the river junction which extends views to and from the tower. Looking from the Chicago Loop, River Point’s reflective curves are highly visible and the grand lobby, plaza and restaurant engage the majesty of the river and the skyline.

To distinguish the lobby within the city scape, a sweeping parabolic arch

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Side and left, River Point, Chicago Photo by David Sundberg/Esto

rises 18 meters and the jewel within the three-story lobby is a monumental wall of brilliant Red Travertine. Carefully crafted by Henraux, the sloped stone wall provides a welcoming warmth. In the evening, the illuminated surface of the Red Travertine provides a glowing vivid red beacon visible throughout downtown.

Conclusion The use of stone in our built environment has transformed over millennia but it

remains an integral component to presentday architecture. Plentiful, durable, and available planet-wide, stone has transitioned from the most rudimentary of building elements to one of alluring beauty and elegance. With its natural geometric patterns, range of textures and colors - each inherently unique, stone has the powerful ability to evoke nature in our built environment, fulfilling our innate emotional attachment to the natural world. We all benefit when it is incorporated into our buildings.

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Art

DIEGO MARCON. CONVERSATION ABOUT LUDWIG

BY LUCREZIA CALABRÒ VISCONTI

With Ludwig, the marble materialisation of a child created from a 3D model, Diego Marcon was among the three winners of the 4th edition of the Henraux Prize. Together with Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, he reflects on the practice of sculpture as a narrative language also for his personal exhibition held at the ZERO gallery in Milan.

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti: I would like to begin our conversation by asking you to think together about two different ways in which sculpture is present in your practice.

The first is linked to your malleable gaze towards the cinematic medium. The reflection - which at times are almost fetishistic - on the structural elements that make up the filmic device emerges consistently in your work, especially from Litania ([Litany]2010) onwards, so as to make a semiotic analysis of your films impossible, since it is often difficult to determine even where the subject ends and where the medium of work begins: the

Diego Marcon at Henraux Photo by Nicola Gnesi

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technical and historical infrastructure on which the film is constructed have narrative and empathetic potential equal to, if not superior to its elements which are pure “content”. An emblematic and somewhat literal example that I could make, in resuming the dialogue you had with Cesare Alemanni on Il Tascabile (The pocketable) a few months ago, is Il Malatino (2017).

In the silent film, the structural absence of the sound of the protagonist’s breathing (Il Malatino [The Weakling], in fact), is compensated according to Alemanni by the extra-vegetative noise of the film unrolling in the 16mm projector. This brings me to

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Diego Marcon, Pour vos beaux yeux, 2013 Super8 black and white reversible film colour, without sound, 8’39 ’’ looped.

View of the “Laurene” installation, Ermes-Ermes, Milan Courtesy of the artist and Ermes-Hermes, Vienna Photo by Filippo Armellin

an element that is not often talked about in relation to your work and strongly connected to a malleable approach to the cinema, that is the degree of actorial interpretation present in your films. For a long time the human figure was totally absent from your work (Pour vos beaux yeux, Storie di fantasmi per adulti, salut! hallo! hello!), or present in the form of living figures but neutralized in their interpretation because of their being immersed in other activities (Monelle: human figures present, but sleeping, Litania: human figures present but from behind or dedicated in prayer; Pattini d’argento [Silver skates]: human figures present, but completely concentrated with skating). On the contrary in your most recent production, there is a very strong, almost lyrical actorial presence, but it is limited to representation by animated characters (Ludwig, Monelle) and consequently, totally controllable thanks to CGI - the flow of knowledge is an exception of Claudia in She Loves You, on which a separate parenthesis should be opened. For these reasons I thought several times that it was at the least, imprecise to define you as a director, imagining your practice close to that of those who assemble

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Diego Marcon, Ludwig, 2018 Video, CGI animation, colour, sound, loop View of the Ludwig installation, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore / LASALLE, Singapore Courtesy of the artist and Ermes-Ermes, Vienna

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or coordinate objects and materials, perhaps we could say that of a sculptor who uses the cinematographic medium.

Diego Marcon: I do not even particularly feel the definition of ‘the director’ in relation to my practice; I have no desire to confront with actors or with an extended crew, nor above all to produce films conceived for traditional film distribution.

Instead, I’m interested in the installation of videos and films in space, in which I believe that every element - even the simplest and most structural of the place - contributes to giving shape to a precise and decisive narrative with respect to the perception of work. Substantially, the approach to the set-up, as for the work in the design and production of films and videos, can be considered in some way of a structuralist nature. In this sense,

even when the work is presented in a movie theatre (for example with Monelle at festival screenings, or for its Italian première during Miart 2018), cinema is used as a narrative element. Even for my first works - single-channel videos - the installation was crucial (for example, for Litania a completely dark space was needed, while Storie di fantasmi per adulti [Ghost stories for adults] also live in the reflections of the projection on the walls and floor), starting with Pour vos beux yeux - first presented at Gasconade in 2013 - I started to become more aware of the plastic aspect of a video or film installation and of the narrative aspect of the elements of an environment, of a display and of the technologies which are themselves necessary for the reproduction and operation of the work. I believe that the

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L.C.V.: What happens with Ludwig is specular and inverse: instead of a narrative that takes advantage of the dynamics of the cinematographic medium to define itself, inhabiting the spaces and animating the structures, is the protagonist of a film.

The boy Ludwig, to be sucked out from the perimeter of the screen and solidified as an object. There is no interpenetration

boy sits becomes the bulky pedestal of the sculpture; the tight times of the animation granted by the “ontological darkness” of the cinema become immobility constrained by the merciless neon of the gallery. At a syntactic level, the dialogue between your work and the film genre is transformed into a relationship with the history of sculpture and with the specific tradition of the memorial monument. I am interested in the choice you made not to give in to the temptation of producing an “anti-monument”. Ludwig respects and re-elaborates the principles of the

between the two languages (the plastic and the filmic one) in a single work, but rather a translation - and therefore repetition - of a subject from one language to another. In this translation process, the dark space of the hold and the indefinite boundaries of Ludwig’s ship become the precise context of the exhibition space; the box on which the

monumental tradition, distancing himself from the strict essentials to make the work disturbing but fundamentally plausible, intact in its celebratory role.

The grotesque irony that hovers in your films condenses into the block of stone marble on which the little boy is seated: it is a pedestal too tragicomically large in comparison to the sculpture it supports,

way in which a cable reaches the electrical outlet of the projector also determines a fundamental formal question capable of affecting the perception of work.

Starting with Pour vos beux yeux first presented at Gasconade in 2013 - I started to become more aware of the plastic aspect of a video or film installation and of the narrative aspect of the elements of an environment, of a display and of the technologies which are themselves necessary for the reproduction and operation of the work.

Diego Marcon, Ludwig, 2018 Altissimo Statuary, 33x49x179 cm detail of the sculpture made at Henraux

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Ludwig is a sort of monument to fragility. The match that the child holds and protects is very delicate. Just a light pressure of the fingers will break it.

Diego Marcon, Quattro cani morti (Four Dead Dogs), 2018 Four ceramic elements, variable dimensions View of the installation “Les Pratiques Solitaires ”, TheView Studio, Genoa Courtesy of the artist, TheView Studio and Ermes-Hermes, Vienna Photo by Andrea Rossetti

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which nevertheless looks at us from top to bottom, standing out in space with all its precise monumentality.

D.M.: I must admit I do not care about sculpture and its practice during the production of my sculptural works. For example, I’m not interested in working with marble, but with marble sculpture. There is no concrete research on the material or the process, or above all in its meaning, it goes without saying that the material is very important ... This also applies to Quattro cani morti [Four Dead Dogs], a work consisting of four dead dogs made in ceramic. I tend to consider these works as elements rather than sculptures. These works are part of some classical sculptural traditions: in the case of Ludwig, it is that of figurative sculpture which ranges from the celebratory monument to the funerary sculpture, while for Quattro cani morti it is in the tradition of decorative ceramics for the living room or garden. In these cases, the work relates to a vision more than to a practice, or to a sculptural process. They relate to a sense that these traditions define, through the forms which their production and distribution processes have taken over the years and also in certain economic,

social and geographical contexts. In the specific case of the Ludwig sculpture, and in relation to the previous and homonymous video work, I believe that the production of the marble element underlines important aspects of the work exhibited at MAXXI, excluding those that directly concern the moving image. This is why sculpture is an autonomous work in relation to the video.

Ludwig is a sort of monument to fragility.

The match that the child holds and protects is very delicate. Just a light pressure of the fingers will break it.

L.C.V.: We have spoken about breakage and continuity in respect to a certain vision, in the case of Ludwig the one produced by the tradition of celebrating the public monument, measurable between the two positions of the festive glorification of the represented subject’s deeds and the mournful commemoration of his loss. In this regard, the place where you decided to place Ludwig, to be precise, the courtyard adjacent to the ZERO gallery... in itself, presents a variety of narratives. As was noted by Michele D’Aurizio in the presentation text at the show, workers, kids, clubbers and visitors

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I think the show is nothing shocking, but that it may perhaps be able to make a slight shift of perception.

Diego Marcon, Ludwig, 2018 Altissimo Statuary, 33x49x179 cm Installation view, ZERO…, Milan Courtesy of Henraux Foundation and ZERO ..., Milan Photo by Roberto Marossi

alternate at different times of the day in this imaginary square, coercively shared.

How do you translate your attention to the presentation space of the work in this place with variable and only partially predictable connotations?

D.M.: Once again, all the elements that combine to give shape to a “context” - for us, the exhibition - are used as narrative elements. From the first visits to the new ZERO gallery... - which for some months has been moved inside a large courtyard shared with several other subjects in the south-eastern outskirts of Milan - I thought that the work was set up out there, immersed in the discreet swarm of all the activity that surrounds the gallery and basically open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The exhibition is therefore not so much - or not only - of the sculptural

works and their formal specifications, but of this precise choice and its minimal gestures. I’m not interested in the reactions of Ludwig’s different audiences outside the usual public of art, not specifically at least - and I couldn’t know them anyway.

My interest is that this public, at least for us, for cultural operators - art-goers - is present, even in the background. The same effort of the visitor to reach the gallery and its position of being in front of the statue in a courtyard located in the outskirts of Milan, perhaps also in the cold and in the rain, are significant elements that bring the work to completion. I think the show is nothing shocking, but that it may perhaps be able to make a slight shift of perception.

On closer inspection, the heart of the show is a small question for me. Why do I still get up every morning?

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A UNCE! THE LIZZATURA OF MARBLE, A LOST CRAFT

BY COSTANTINO PAOLICCHI

A detailed analysis describing one of the most strenuous manoeuvres of the whole marble production cycle, abandoned by the Henraux of Cidonio in 1956: the lizzatura, which included all of the block moving operations of the marble extracted from the quarry.

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A lizzatore, Carrara, the 1930s Before the introduction of steel cables, for the lizzatura they used large hemp ropes (canapi) Photo Bessi Archive

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The lizzatura of a block of marble weighing over twenty tons on Monte Altissimo. It deals with of the last lizzatura carried out May 22, 1957 by the Lizzatura Company from Azzano Photo Archive Henraux

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The Henraux Society, recently taken over

by Erminio Cidonio, decided in 1956 to put an end to the ancient method of lizzatura, creating a daring road of entrenchment in order to reach the high quarries of Fitta, Macchietta and Tacca Bianca on Monte Altissimo.

Cidonio was the far-sighted sole administrator who created an international art centre within the company in Querceta.

This involved all of the most famous and celebrated masters of contemporary sculpture in the 1960s. The international sculpture award created by Henraux S.p.A. and by the Henraux Foundation is dedicated to him.

Already known by the Egyptians and then widely used by the Romans in the Luni quarries, lizzatura was now uneconomical and inadequate with respect to modern production requirements. It also involved an inhumanely large effort for the workers, subjecting them to incredibly high professional risk, it has always represented the most difficult and risky operation of the entire marble production cycle. Many of the fatal accidents that occurred in the stone sector took place during the different phases of lizzatura.

By creating the road, Henraux once again highlighted not only its innovative capacity in the field of corporate technologies but also a particular sensitivity towards its employees, already amply demonstrated in the past. Before 1893, for example, only

the Eredi Sancholle Henraux Company of Querceta had provided, in the entire mining district, to insure over six hundred of its workers; the example was followed by a few other Versilian companies in 1894.

Similarly, no retirement provision was envisaged for old age and the problem only began to be solved in 1903, when the Eredi company complied with the obligations assumed with the 1902 employment contract S. Henraux, the first in Versilia, it enrolled 300 workers in the National Welfare Fund for Old Age. In 1957, the Lizzatori Company of Azzano carried out a spectacular lizzatura along the terrible via di Lizza of the Tacca Bianca for the final time. There remains of today a series of beautiful photographic images.

These workers were the descendants of those men who five hundred years ago in 1518 and 1519 - had brought down the columns destined for the Florentine church of San Lorenzo, which Michelangelo had extracted from the quarry he opened in the Trambiserra mountain, along a primitive road to Lizza.

In a wall of the mountain, just below the quarry of Macchietta, at the most difficult and steepest point of the entire route, the lizzaturas wanted to engrave - for posterity - an inscription with a date: 22 - 5 - 1957 10 ‘O’ CLOCK COMPAGNIA LIZZATORI AZZANO. “All the operations of moving the marble blocks extracted and felled from the

Many of the fatal accidents that occurred in the stone sector took place during the different phases of lizzatura.

By creating the road, Henraux once again highlighted a particular sensitivity towards its employees, already amply demonstrated in the past.

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The lizza of Apuan quarries was, in fact, a daily competition with the mountain and with destiny by the men. During the phases of lizzatura, on the edge of the precipice, the workers swore like demons. At the end of fatigue and danger, they marked themselves with the cross and thanked God and Our Lady.

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quarry front were understood by the name lizzatura, both on the squares of the quarries themselves and, more particularly, along the very steep downhill paths. The name derives from the main instrument of this transport system, namely the long wooden sled, made from robust trunks of strong wood, which were precisely called “lizza”1.

In the dictionary of the Italian language by Giacomo Devoto and Gian Carlo Oli2, one can read that the term lizza is descended from an entry in a northern dialect: l’ilza with clarification of the article, a derivation of the Latin tardo helcia, “rope to tow”.

However the contention was the enclosure destined to the tests of weapons, and “to go down in contention” meant to take part in a competition. The lizza of Apuan quarries was, in fact, a daily competition with the mountain and with destiny by the men. During the phases of lizzatura, on the edge of the precipice, the workers swore like demons. At the end of fatigue and danger, they marked themselves with the cross and thanked God and Our Lady.

The term lizza, originally referring to the sled only, was later extended to the inclined planes along which the marble charges were made to descend, which took the name of lizza routes or vie a lizza and then simply lizze.

In order to be able to move the blocks remaining in the quarry yard, and so along a horizontal plane, it was necessary to submit them to two procedures: the first consisted in the arming of the blocks by means of particular devices able to decrease the resistance to movement; the second was concerned with applying to the blocks a force capable of making them move in the desired direction.

The load to be transported, which could have consisted of a single large block or a series of smaller blocks, was prepared by placing its base on the squares, or on piles of debris or small boulders that kept it raised from the ground, in order to allow - during the next phase - the placing of

the sled below. In preparing the charge formed by several blocks of various sizes, the larger block was generally placed at the bottom, to form the charge plane.

The other blocks were carefully placed above the loading surface, connected to each other and firmly tied with chains or pieces of ropes (the slings), according to the weight of the load and according to the slope of the track.

The real lizza consisted of three robust trunks of varying lengths from 4 to 7 meters, with a section of about 15cm x 15cm. In general, beech or oak wood was used for the construction of both the lizze and the rollers (pieces of wood about one and a half meters long, with the same denomination as those, similar in shape and size, which were used to drop into the sea and push the boats back to ground). The charge, once ready, had a total weight ranging between 12 and 20 tons; exceptionally, 26 tons and more were reached.

The sliding of the lizza always took place by means of the rollers, which were covered with tallow or soap. When the load was still in the quarry square the muscular strength of various men equipped with poles or by use of winches were required to move it. Having reached the beginning of the via di lizza, the charge was secured to sturdy ropes by means of a joint (the cricket): depending on the weight of the load and the inclination of the via di lizza, the number of ropes could vary from two to six. The ropes had the function of securing the load during the descent; historically, and up until the 1920s they consisted of hemp or jute, with a diameter varying from 40 to 50 mm. and a length of about 50 meters. After the 1920s they were gradually replaced by steel cables.

The weight of the load and the slope of the descent determined the number of cables to be used. In the via di lizza section three cables were used in general, and in the easier parts only two, but there were cases in which - increasing the weight of

Monte Altissimo, a stretch of the old via di lizza for the Macchietta and Fitta quarries and Tacca Bianca Photo Costantino Paolicchi

Monte Altissimo, the inscription commemorates the final lizzatura, engraved in the mountain along the most challenging section of the same via di lizza.

Photo Costantino Paolicchi

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The extremely steep slopes of Monte Altissimo along the via di lizza just below of the Macchietta quarry. Note the “Piro” of marble bearing the signs of the rubbing of the hemp ropes Photo Costantino Paolicchi

Workers “mollatori” (looseners) during the stages of a lizzatura.

The steel cables that hold the load is wrapped around the wooden piri Photo Bessi Archive

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the charge - the cables could rise to four or even six, in the sections of greater inclination.

The via di lizza ordinarily traced the marble slag, especially in Carrara, or was built along the slope of the mountain by means of a “dry” roadbed, which was then paved with a technique called a curl.

Sometimes, for long stretches, the via di lizza was dug directly into the rock of the mountain. In cases of a greater slope, the walls were left fixed along the path, anchored to the mountain, to facilitate the work of the lizzatori.

At the sides of the via di lizza, at intervals ranging from a minimum of a few meters to a maximum of forty, or more metres, the piri were placed, sturdy poles just under a meter long and firmly fixed in the living rock or in large blocks of marble or stone called forti. The piro was generally built of chestnut wood: it had a quadrangular shape and was stuck in a square hole of about 30-40 centimetres per side and 2030 centimetres deep, dug with a chisel, a beam and a mallet in the rock. This shape prevented the piro, subjected to very strong forces, from rotating on itself. Around the piro were then reinforced wedges, often obtained from acacia wood, very resistant to friction. Even the wedges were inserted into the rock through an octagonal-shaped excavation made all around the piro hole, to lock them firmly to the main trunk, called the piro’s soul.

In ancient times, when using ropes, the piri were very often made of marble, expertly worked in the form of a truncated cone with the larger base facing upwards.

The surface of the marble piro, smoother than that of the wooden piro, allowed the rope to slide, producing less friction; moreover, the marble piri had a longer duration, while those of wood had to be subjected to constant maintenance and periodically replaced.

The main cables used to hold the load during the descent were wound in several

turns around the piri. In this way, they obtained sufficient friction to hold back the sled with little effort from the mollatori, the workers assigned to the sliding of the ropes. In fact, it was sufficient to increase or decrease the number of coils of the rope wrapped around the piro to move or to retain the enormous weight of the charge. So the ropes took place around the piri, as the load descended driven by their own weight; if the ropes - for example numbered three, two were kept in traction to support the load, allowing the mollatori to unwind and rewind the third rope to the piro below. The entire manoeuvre of lizzatura was based on the alternate use of the ropes.

An average team of lizzatori consisted of ten or thirteen men, who obeyed the orders of a leader. The chief had the delicate task of directing all the operations, and in addition, he had to place the rollers in front of the load, assisted by a first officer.

He also gave orders to the mollatori, using conventional words that were pronounced with guttural cries: “fort” to indicate holding the charge, “a unce” to drop it.

At least four workers were employed to retrieve the rollers left freed of the load, to keep them lathered and to pass them to the leader of the team and his assistant who placed them again in front of the sled.

The lizzatura, in addition to being a difficult and dangerous operation, was also one of the most strenuous of the entire production cycle. Work began in the early hours of the day, especially in the summer, when the still low temperatures of the very early morning offered greater guarantees of hemp resistance to the friction of the piri. After finishing the lizzatura, which occupied a large part, if not the entire working day, the workers had to load the ropes and sleds on their shoulders and take them back to the quarry, generally following the same steep path used for the lowering of the blocks.

N OT E 1 F. Bradley, E. Medda, Le strade dimenticate. Vie di lizza e discesa del marmo nelle alte valli massesi, Marina di Massa 1995, p. 11.

2 G. Devoto, G. C. Oli, Dizionario della lingua italiana, Le Monnier, Firenze 1990.

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Design

BAUHAUS, STILL WITH US 100 YEARS LATER

BY ALDO COLONETTI

Bauhaus celebrates a centenary maintaining an undiminished contemporary reach.

In affirming a Weltanschauung Fundamentally anchored in understanding art and its Discourse with other disciplines, It insists on Relationships between teacher and student as a transfer of practices and vision.

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Bauhaus lasted just fourteen years, from 1919 to 1933, and it had 1250 students.

Therefore, we speak of seemingly insignificant numbers, but nevertheless, its thought and its didactic experience maintain a centrality and an actuality that no other movement of this type has been able to produce.

Giulio Carlo Argan understood this perfectly, in his famous 1951 essay Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus (the text is still invaluable today in understanding the complexity of its path), whose introduction captures the philosophical essence of this school: “Art becomes the character of every positively vital or constructive human impulse; and, as a perennial will of conscience, it is the antithesis of every brutal will of power, a spirit of peace against the spirit of war, virtue against fury�.

Extraordinarily topical words, and perhaps this is the reason why 2019 is not only a centenary but also represents an opportunity to rethink the fundamental relationship between art and all those disciplines that, in specializing more and more, have invaded our daily experiences, transforming the aesthetic dimension into a kind of passepartout, making it necessary to talk about everything, almost to determine the relationship between us and the world.

Here, leaving to the historians the rigors of reconstructing the phenomenon that, as we know, had three fundamental phases (Weimar 1919-1925, Dessau 19251932, Berlin 1932-1933 - before being definitively closed by the Nazis, and three directors - the founder Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe) we try

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Barcelona armchairs

by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

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Bauhaus Museum in Dessau

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Volkswagen’s logo

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to enter as archaeologists of the material culture in the great river of this school that has not only been a place of formation, but a way of relating the productive system with its political and social dimensions, trying to identify those aspects which are still current. It is necessary to understand the “oscillations of taste”, but not only these, of our time.

It is no coincidence that our country, the absolute protagonist in the applied arts has earned a central role in the international market, it probably represents the studios where, more indirectly than directly, the philosophy of the German school has been and still is the hero. This is despite the fact that only three Italians attended it: Augusto Cernigoj, a Slovenian-speaking Italian, Alfredo Bortoluzzi but, above all, Ivo Pannaggi of Macerata, without a doubt the

most coherent. Who, until his death, 2001 bore witness to a type of Bauhaus matrix model.

Firstly, even with the theoretical and pedagogical differences, the references to art remain central in Argan’s definition of the “perennial will of conscience”.

Today above all, we need, with all the diffusion of culture and digital languages that have lead us to increasingly sophisticated technological specializations, to have a broader cognitive horizon, where art, both as a practice and as a theoretical reflection, constitutes a sort of orientational compass. They did not go in vain into the classrooms of the Bauhaus, even during difficult and direct debates that also led to clashes and expulsions, we discovered artists like Klee, Kandinskij, Feininger (the author of the first school manifesto), Itten,

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Moholy-Nagy, Albers and Schlemmer who created the famous logo of the state Bauhaus. There is a common trait, that of art, which is also present when architecture, particularly from the period of Dessau onwards, becomes the discipline of reference, central to a real revolution that will later lead to the United States, to Chicago with Mies and to define the urban representation of the great North American cities.

Alongside the role of art, another fundamental fact is the centrality, in any formative and projected path, of the relationship between student, teacher and craftsman, in its highest concept of not only the transfer of practices but also visions of the world. And it is this kind of “pedagogy” that explains the value

theatrical performance of Oscar Schlemmer and finally to the architecture that “always implies the possession of space”, as Walter Gropius writes, “because construction is the determination of the spatial idea”.

It is a program that remains contemporary, because, as always, when in a movement, the works, although fundamental, represent only partially the thinking on which a vision is founded. It follows that it was not exhausted in its own time; most especially today we need to reread the Bauhaus because, if everything is connected, we must find the maps, the threads of Ariadne, the sense of things.

In particular, by retracing the research, the projects, the works of the Bauhaus, in reference also to, but not only, the natural

“of the myth that industrial design will recognize and identify within the object, beyond its own functionality”, as Argan writes.

A third legacy of the Bauhaus, which should be engraved as a kind of epigraph in contemporary design culture, is to always think about the particular within the universal. Starting with the typography that is a means by which we learn facts and concepts, regardless of the form of the signs of writing. Then to move on to objects, to the

materials, which were at the center of the workshops, we try to indicate a series of objects and products that have come down to us, not only as ambassadors of another century, but as contemporaries to the taste of today, demonstrating that the “oscillations”, as Gillo Dorfles wrote in his famous essay, come and go, while some values remain as timeless classics.

We just need to think of amongst other things the “Futura” typeface, by Paul Renner which is at the base of contemporary advertising

It is a program that remains contemporary, because, as always, when in a movement, the works, although fundamental, represent only partially the thinking on which a vision is founded. It follows that it was not exhausted in its own time.

The marble houses built at Henraux for the exhibition 999 Una collezione di domande sull’abitare contemporaneo (A collection of questions on contemporary living)

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Furthermore, I would also say the whole way the images are constructed, the iconographic sequences of the narratives of our portable phone, derive from the research of Piet Zwart, where lines, geometric shapes, numbers, letters of the alphabet represented the grammar and the syntax of visual communication.

A printed postal stamp in Germany (around 1998) exhibition Peter Behrens’ Glassware, Teapot by Marianne Brandt, Desk lamp by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer

and used without thanks (for example in the Volkswagen logo). Our current computers use a method of writing that derives from this research, because the whole composition of verbal written language makes the forms derive directly from each other, according to simple compositional rules.

Furthermore, I would also say the whole way the images are constructed, the iconographic sequences of the narratives of our portable phone, derive from the research of Piet Zwart, where lines, geometric shapes, numbers, letters of the alphabet represented the grammar and the syntax of visual communication.

The educational games for children, made of wood or other materials such as stone I think for example the small white marble houses designed and produced by Henraux for the exhibition “999 a collection of questions about contemporary living” at the Triennale - are derived from the works of Alma Buscher, influenced by a great Italian pedagogue: Maria Montessori.

Marcel Breuer’s “Wassily” chair, made in honour of Kandinsky, is an icon, which has been present everywhere since 1925, as a sort of miniature architecture, alongside another extraordinary chair by Mies Van Der Rohe, “Barcelona” (1929), a true emblem of the meeting between some constructive elements, typical of Mies architecture, with the handicraft culture that is the basis of the

“cut and sew” manual, necessary to realize the button quilting. This also reminds us that innovation without the recovery of some elements that derive from the handmade, is not able to last over time; this is not just for leather, think of the processing of marble.

Unique lamps like those of Wilheim Wagenfeld, or Marianne Brandt’s small teapot, recreated for the present day

by Alessi. These and other objects and products that are part of our daily lives, probably without knowing it, derive from this extraordinary experience, and here the strength of a revolutionary thought resides because it has surpassed its own time.

Finally, let’s not forget that the urban landscape derives from the design imagery of both Mies and Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. In particular the compositional use of construction elements that allows a total relationship from inside to outside, between the city’s design and architectural verticality, in such a way that the light can define the empty and the full and the transparent surface as structural elements. The contemporary cities that grow day by day in spaces without history and develop with the signs of efficient modernity are all daughters and grandchildren of this philosophy. Therefore the Bauhaus is very much among us and we will have to discourse with this centennial story for some time still.

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AN INTRODUCTION TO STONE

BY MIRIAM SLEEMAN AND TOM SLOAN

The designers from The Miriam and Tom Studio talk about their latest project made in Taikoo Place for Swire Properties, and about choosing stone as a fundamental material.

The Chinese and English toponymy of Hong Kong is translated into furniture through Versylis marble.

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Taikoo Place, Swire Properties, Hong Kong

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Our challenge was to inject new elements whilst being sympathetic to an existing interior scheme which focused on bringing nature and natural elements into the space.

Above and right, some moments of the creation of the project at Henraux

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We are incredibly proud of the stone furniture created for Swire Properties at Taikoo Place. To partner with a client, Swire, and a craftsman, Henraux, who were both open to explore a sensitive design and manufacturing process was a great privilege.

Swire Properties commissioned us to create a series of unique furniture pieces that would be the signature reception counters and seating for the new foyers of One Taikoo Place, Swire Properties’ latest commercial redevelopment in Hong Kong.

Our challenge was to inject new elements whilst being sympathetic to an existing interior scheme which focused on bringing nature and natural elements into the space.

With this in mind, there were two critical elements that we wanted to deliver in our design.

The first was to draw inspiration from the historical layers of the site. Its Chinese name, tsak yue chung, relates to a small stream where crucian carp were harvested by the locals. Its name in English, aptly named Quarry Bay, relates to its time as an area quarried for granite to supply building material to the developing city to the west.

Our desire was to bring forward the site’s connection to water and its qualities of softness, power and reflectance; and that of the quarry with its qualities of strata, layering, cutting and carving.

The second was to find a form which echoed the client’s history as sea faring traders and the story of John Samuel Swire who arrived in Quarry Bay in the late 1800’s to develop and expand his company’s sugar and shipping divisions.

To this day, Quarry Bay remains the helm of Swire, hosting their HQ. This story reinforced the important and powerful connection to water as well as bringing in the ideas of a vessel that transports and contains, and one that evokes movement, progression and tradition.

At the same time, the form required the practicality of seating and reception counters and needed to be accessible to all.

To address this we instead used meandering access heights and depths as an integral part of the form with the desire to make the reception counters feel approachable and accessible at every point.

As a result, we designed the furniture as functional and inhabitable sculptures. We

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Henraux staff at work on The Miriam and Tom Studio project for Taikoo Place

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created vessels and volumes of movement that would both, in form and material, reflect and enhance the nature-driven narrative of the building foyer, the rich historical context of the site, and Swire’s position within that history.

In look, the seats needed to be one continuous surface of material, whereas the reception counters wanted to be made from a build-up of slices stacked next to one another, reflecting the building blocks and range of divisions that make up Swire Properties today. With that we wanted them to be independent, complementary, impressive, strong and precious as objects.

As such, the material had to match the ambition of the form in strength, enhance it through its colours, blend with the interior finishes and relate to the context of the site.

Stone became the natural choice. This transported us from Quarry Bay in Hong Kong to another quarry, that of Henraux in Forte di Marmi, Italy.

Here we were met with abundance.

Abundance of character, charm, history, skill, craftsmanship and stone.

Arriving in Henraux’s quarry was exhilarating. Standing underneath its ‘cathedral’ was an intense moment made all the more immense by the breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape and ocean beyond and the rich history of the people who have worked there, taken stone from the mountain and shaped some of the most evocative and powerful artworks in history.

Coming down from the mountain and arriving at Henraux’s factory was equally impressive. The whole factory acts as a gallery for the vast possibilities of stone, and with that it is highly organized with equivalent measures of machinery, expertise, engineering, craftsmanship, passion and a labyrinthine yard full of stone from all over the world.

Wandering around Henraux’s yard we came across a block of Versilys marble which was being used as a plinth for another sculpture. Its richness and threads of colour serendipitously matched those of the interior lobby and, coupled with the

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Top, Taikoo Place, Swire Properties, Hong Kong, details Left, Taikoo Place, Swire Properties, Hong Kong

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Taikoo Place, Swire Properties, Hong Kong

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The choice of Versilys became even more apparent on seeing the initial studies cut from blocks to test joint and edge details. It is a material that really comes to life as soon as it is shaped and the beauty of its geological makeup exposed.

Taikoo Place, Swire Properties, Hong Kong

immense variety and expression of flow and depth of its layers, it instantly struck us as the ideal material for the furniture pieces.

The choice of Versilys became even more apparent on seeing the initial studies cut from blocks to test joint and edge details.

It is a material that really comes to life as soon as it is shaped and the beauty of its geological makeup exposed.

Over the course of the subsequent months engineering and artistry collided at Henraux to bring the pieces to life.

The Verilsys blocks were cut from the mountain, maneuvered down to the factory along narrow winding roads, assessed for viability, sliced into manageable pieces, moved, cut into profiles, moved, rotated,

CNC milled, moved again, reinforced, shaped, arranged, hand-finished and meticulously packed ready to be shipped to Hong Kong.

Back in Hong Kong the furniture arrived suitably by ship and the installation of the pieces inside the building was a performance of its own. It was a wonderful culmination of months of dedicated hard work.

Looking back, Swire’s patronage and Henraux’s passion have made this project what it is. At every point skilled hands have been involved to enable this project to be a reality and so we wish to extend our thanks to the whole team.

Fortunately for us, this has made it a superb introduction to the material of stone.

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INTERVIEW FOR TWO: FRANCESCO ARENA AND DAVID HORVITZ

BY LORENZO BENEDETTI

Francesco Arena and David Horvitz are two of the three winners of the last edition of the Henraux Prize. In order to create their works, they have Worked white marble From Altissimo in the quarries and in the Henraux establishments in Querceta. Lorenzo Benedetti interviews them for us.

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Francesco Arena (top) and David Horvitz (bottom) Photo by Nicola Gnesi

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FArena Francesco Arena Lorenzo Benedetti: In your work Cubic meter of marble with linear meter of ash there is a combination of different materials. Marble and ash, both extreme materials, are balanced in their precise equilibrium, as often occurs in your works. How was this work conceived?

Francesco Arena: Cubic meter of marble with linear meter of ash is a work on time or better on times. There is no single time, man’s time is not that of stone and vice versa. The materials have their own times.

The time of marble is that of the earth: geological eras, gigantic opposing forces that generate the hard, resistant material that men have always used to build dwellings that have a longer life than those who built and inhabited them. It is a material used to create monuments that serve to make a lifetime and a memory connected to it last. The ashes of the cigars I smoke is the time of a moment, a small fraction of time repeated over time that is somehow marked by its daily repetition.

The ash is what remains of a breath, the physical part that you can touch is very light but resistant, it can blow away with a breath but it is practically indestructible just like the marble that you can reduce

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to dust but you cannot make disappear completely. The two materials in their natural state, one in the form of a mountain and the other in the form of an unstable mound, are “ordered� according to a rule given by man, a measure, that of the cubic or linear meter, that we use to establish the space we occupy in the world, to give order to the random.

L.B.: The marble you use has a specific character. Its veins reference the movements of the smoke. This aesthetic element of marble is also linked to the combination of different elements that often put man in dialogue with the landscape. When did you first use this combination of materials?

F.A.: The movements of smoke last a moment, the air immediately disperses the grey and irregular sketches of the smoke, while the veins of the marble have a very long, eternal life. the work is born from these comparisons and it is also for this reason that the line drawn and filled with ash, it is completely different from the abstraction of the curved lines of the veins or spirals of smoke. I used ash and marble together for the first time in Cubic meter of marble with linear meter of ash but later I made Ash Horizon where ash and stone

are used together. That work is a block of unpolished stone, left in its natural ash grey colour from which a column/plinth has been cut to my height, 166.5 cm high, 20 cm wide and 20 cm deep. The column at 8.5 cm from one of its ends it was cut again with a disk that takes 11mm of material away during cutting, and removes it. In this way, the column was divided into two pieces, one 157 cm high - as far as the ground distance at the base of my eyes - and another 8.5 cm piece - as the distance from the top of my eyes to the top of my skull. When the sculpture is mounted, the 11mm scrap taken away by the saw is replaced by 11 mm of cigar ash collected over time. In this way, the recomposed column has my same height again and the centimetre of cigar ash corresponds to my eye level, my horizon.

Before these works, I had used marble or stone together with diaries of different years, opened at right angles and joined together so as to form something solid.

A block of stone is cut so as to fill the empty space between the two diaries, as in Marble between 80 years.

L.B.: The human form is often present in your works. Geometric, translated into a way of measuring distances, weight or

Clockwise from the top: Francesco Arena, Cube (Petrolio), 2018, marble, book, 21x21x21 cm Courtesy Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri Francesco Arena, Lost Horizon, 2016, stone, books, 157x32.5x16 cm Courtesy Sprovieri, London Photo by Roberto Marossi Francesco Arena, Marble between 80 Years, 2018, marble, 2 diaries, 16x12x16 cm Courtesy Studio Trisorio, Naples Photo by Roberto Ruiz

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Francesco Arena, Metro cubo di marmo con metro lineare di cenere (Cubic metre of marble with linear metre of ash), 2018, marmo macchietta, cigar ash, 100cm x 100cm x 100cm Photo by Nicola Gnesi

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The materials have their own times. The time of marble is that of the earth: geological eras, gigantic opposing forces that generate the hard, resistant material that men have always used to build dwellings that have a longer life than those who built and inhabited them.

time. There is also a clear reference to the artist’s point of view, the horizon from which he looks and measures the world.

In the moment of transformation of the figurative into the abstract there is a kind of universal language, which is abstract but at the same time creates links with different times, places and cultures. Could one often interpret your works as a series of abstract self-portraits?

F.A.: The shape and size of many of my works are linked to the size of my body, they are self-portraits in subtraction where verisimilitude is not sought with

my appearance, but fidelity with a given space occupied in the world. The sculpture is another body with which we seek a relationship, it is an object whose use is not only visual but which also requires the perception of the physical characteristics of the material from which the sculpture is made. The apparent abstraction of selfportraits is actually the result of a process of gradual subtraction that serves to highlight a cut and dry given, for example, the height of my visual horizon, which, in the work aspires to be a shared reference point.

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David Horvitz, A Mountain / A Sea, 2018, Statuario Altissimo, various dimensions Photo by Nicola Gnesi

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DHorvitz David Horvitz

When they take a stone, they write their name. I ask for first names only. I don’t want it to be a certain person. A “David” instead of a “David Horvitz”. I don’t want it to be about who has it, but that someone has it.

David Horvitz, A Mountain / A Sea, 2018, Statuario Altissimo, various dimensions Photo by Nicola Gnesi

Lorenzo Benedetti: For the project at the Fondazione Henraux last year you showed a work titled A Mountain / A sea in which you are reversing the idea that is common about marble like a heavy material. In your project this material seems more to become a form of communication. How did the project start?

David Horvitz: It is a story. A kind of coincidence that I brought the work. The movement of marble, of people and of stories. Maybe a piece of stone carrying with it a story. I put a piece of the marble on the side of the freeway in Los Angeles. Connecting these two places.

To me, this was the main work, this little gesture. documented in photos and a text, translated. Translation is moving between two points, like the stone moving between two points. In the show was a pile of rock, crumbled. All from a single block of white marble. People could take a piece home. This act, this movement, was to parallel what I did in Los Angeles, and the mountain would disappear, it would disperse, though it’s still there, just in pieces in a distributed decentralized form.

Maybe on a shelf or in someone’s pocket.

L.B.: In your practice there is a form of entropy. Dispersion/diffusion are the translation from a stone to a story. Do you have a way to record the scattering of the work?

D.H.: There is a book for people to write their first name’s only. When they take a

stone, they write their name. The book is left as a document of names anchoring the stones that are no longer there. I ask for first names only. I don’t want it to be a certain person. A “David” instead of a “David Horvitz”. I don’t want it to be about who has it, but that someone has it.

The book as an anchor holding the weight of the stones, or of the stories.

L.B.: In your project you deal with the concept of monument in a different way.

A block of marble acquires a different status when it moves and links different places and stories together. There is a relationship between the migration of people and migration of stones. The white stone that is now at the interchange between two freeways is coming from a famous quarry in Italy. The mountain is fragmented and the people take the stone with them like a fractal of a landscape.

It looks that disappearing is a form of showing. Like the act of carving a mountain is making the form. Is for you the void a form?

D.H.: It depends how we understand the void. For me the work very much has a form, its form is just in movement. Does the wind have a form? Obviously, yes it does. But at each moment that form is air being scattered across a landscape. For me, maybe the word scattering is more apt than void. In its absence in one place, it is present somewhere else.

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SELFRIDGES PUBLIC REALM: URBAN MARBLE

BY ALESSIA DELISI

Sketch of the project Left the entrance to the Selfridges department store on Duke Street, London Courtesy Djao-Rakitine

In London, in the Mayfair district, David Chipperfield’s project for the entrance of the Selfridges department store converses with a bench and a fountain sculpted in precious Italian marble. It is signed by the landscape architecture firm Djao – Rakitine.

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The square is symbolically dominated by two sculptural elements, a marble bench and a fountain, while four trees define the architectural space, confusing nature and artifice. We are in London, facing the new entrance to the Selfridges department store on Duke Street. It was designed by the British architect David Chipperfield who, in addition to the entrance, imagined an environment dedicated to accessories, in the eastern wing of the structure, whose success story began in 1909.

Playing with dark tones, in open contrast with the cream-coloured stone of the adjacent buildings - compared to which it is slightly set-back - Chipperfield’s project restores Selfridges to its former glory while maintaining its aesthetic autonomy. The imposing glass window that overlooks the entrance, which extends over three floors, is in fact framed by thin columns covered with bronze and rests on a black prefabricated concrete structure, with the two monumental pillars marking the portico.

Essential, geometric, respectful of the historical heritage of the building and representative of its cultural importance - it was the first shop to make shopping a seductive experience, made up of expectations, courtesies, shop windows set up like works of art and illuminated day and night - Chipperfield’s design is part of a broader redevelopment plan aimed at reinforcing the identity of the store, improving, on the one hand, its urban presence and on the other, pedestrian circulation. Inside, plaster supporting columns, immaculate floors and ceilings recall the neoclassical architecture of the original building and, like the lights - elegant glass spheres that reference the

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type of lighting in vogue in the 1920s maintain their independence with respect to the display system. The light stone of these spaces on the ground floor is then resumed externally, where white terrazzo floors seem to extend the space, accentuating the sense of continuity with the department store.

The Djao–Rakitine, Henraux project is situated within this elegant context. A Landscape architecture studio founded in 2015, Djao–Rakitine worked in Moscow (with Strelka KB) as well as other cities in Russia, Luxembourg (with Promobe), it also developed original solutions for private clients in China and Slovenia. Its founder, Irene Djao – Rakitine, has experience behind her at the London studio VOGT (from 2009 to 2015) and another at the prestigious Atelier Jean Nouvel in Paris (from 2006 to 2009). Convinced that drawing by hand is essential for the development of ideas and projects, whereas digital design allows for the precise coordination of all the other members of the design team, including for Selfridges, Djao-Rakitine focused on the specific characteristics of the site, analyzing its historical, social, economic and natural aspects whilst creating prototypes and models for each phase. The result is a suggestive piece of street furniture that openly communicates with the Chipperfield designed entrance on Duke Street. Faced with the majestic black columns that dominate the portico, the Djao–Rakitine project is comprised of a bench and a marble fountain but also includes a redevelopment of the entire street experience - from the wide and renewed flooring to the lighting - all enclosed within the symbolic confines of four trees to embellish it. The square appears as a meeting point and a place of

The Djao–Rakitine project is comprised of a bench and a marble fountain but also includes a redevelopment of the entire street experience - from the wide and renewed flooring to the lighting - all enclosed within the symbolic confines of four trees to embellish it.

Front view of the bench and of the fountain.

Courtesy Djao-Rakitine Section of the project

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Both pieces of furniture are made of precious Italian marble; through their blunt shape, they help give the idea of a natural environment that potentially extends beyond that which can be seen, in contrast to one of the busiest areas in London.

Render Right The entrance of the Selfridges department store on Duke’s Street, London Courtesy Djao-Rakitine

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reunion, a space that, although rising within the city, allows you to hide away from its bustle. In a metropolis where most public drinking fountains have disappeared, the Djao–Rakitine fountain offers visitors, residents and employees of the district the pleasant opportunity to fill their bottles with water, thus reducing the proliferation of single use plastic bottles. Thanks to its four different shapes and sizes, the bench instead provides a place for different people to meet or take a rest. Both pieces of furniture are made of precious Italian marble; through their blunt shape, they help give the idea of a natural environment that potentially extends beyond that which can be seen, in contrast to one of the busiest areas in London. In fact, in such a soil the possibility of planting and growing trees was in fact very limited. This is why the selected

species are the result of a careful study of the soil, which also includes the creation of grids made to optimize the growth of the trunks. And this is also why the choice of the marble to be used for the two monoliths fell on the ancient Verde Luana, a particular type of rock characterized by surprising undulating veins in different shades of green, interrupted by a number of white inserts. Extracted from the Apuan Alps, in Tuscany, where it was formed about 25 million years ago, therefore Verde Luana is the material that is best suited to evoke, with its serpentine consistency and the continuous and transverse movement, a mountainous landscape made of water and stone.

As Irene Djao–Rakitine explains, that during the creation she chose to smooth the corners, focusing on the organic nature

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The bench and the fountain

by Irene Djao–Rakitine can also be read in this manner, which, although conceived as unique objects, carry with them - because of the techniques used - the germ of reproducibility.

Accordingly, it is not surprising that today more and more companies are choosing marble for projects with a strong appeal for identity and an assured visual impact.

Above Some details of the bench and of the fountain Left The entrance to Selfridges department store on Duke Street, London Courtesy Djao-Rakitine

of the form, the creation of the bench and the fountain has seen the succession of many phases: “I started making sketches by hand. So I modelled and sculpted the two elements with clay, many times and with many variations. When, we at the studio - Selfridges and the David Chipperfield Architects were satisfied with the aesthetics, proportions, functionality and complementarity of both objects, we scanned the models in 3D and started digitally refining the details. The 3D digital models were then used to cut stone blocks with a CNC machine. Finally, I worked on the manual finishing of the sculptures with Dorel Pop, a very experienced craftsman, and Lorenzo Carrino, who assisted us in the manufacturing process, all of this was made entirely in Tuscany at Henraux”.

Thanks to this extraordinary combination of techniques and skills, Djao–Rakitine has created a work that, while remaining in line with the general ethos of Westminster and the range of materials that characterizes it, presents itself as a unique moment in the Mayfair district, whose tipping point is above all in the clever union of technology and craftsmanship that it reveals.

Despite being massive and secure, the shapes created by Djao–Rakitine evoke a sense of lightness, accentuated by the light color and the extreme smoothness of the marble. The characteristics of non-

reproducibility, as well as a link with the territory of extraction, make it a precious material and in some ways unique. The contribution that this can give to design understood as the production of objects in series - is therefore in terms of an added value that is added to the talent and creativity of the designer, whose creations thus become comparable to works of art. The bench and the fountain by Irene Djao–Rakitine can also be read in this manner, which, although conceived as unique objects, carry with them - because of the techniques used - the germ of reproducibility. Accordingly, it is not surprising that today more and more companies are choosing marble for projects with a strong appeal for identity and an assured visual impact. After all, as the designer Martino Gamper asked some time ago, why venerate an industrially produced object if there are still hundreds of copies? The meeting of marble and design does this: it reconciles what is only seemingly irreconcilable and does so at a time when the debate on sustainability and the creation of objects with a longer life cycle is particularly active. In a world where the abundance of waste is the other face of consumerism, marble is in fact among the few materials capable of tracing a line, lasting over time, which unites man in an exemplary way - his artistic and technological skills - with nature.

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BROKEN NATURE. THE XXII TRIENNALE OF MILAN ACCORDING TO GILLO DORFLES

BY GILLO DORFLES, REPORTED BY ALDO COLONETTI

“Every person is subject to freedom ”, thus concludes the illuminating and unpublished contribution of Gillo Dorfles, collected shortly before his disappearance, by Aldo Colonetti, by the way of the dialectic between artifice and nature, aesthetics and ethics, in the centre of the XXII Milan Triennial.

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Gillo Dorfles Photo by Nicola Gnesi

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Let’s begin with this consideration: man exists by himself as an object, but at the same time he is able in turn to create other objects, which are not necessarily artistic objects, but which are transformations of nature.

Birdsong, Khaled Malas, Salim Al Kadi, Alfred Tarazi with Jana Traboulsi of Sigil with Aamer Ibrahim, Emad Madah and the Fateh Moudarres Center for Art and Culture, 2019

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Broken Nature is the title of the XXII Milan Triennale, open from 1st March to 1st September this year, curated by Paola Antonelli, head of design and architecture at MOMA in New York.

One of the first documents to support this research is represented by Gillo Dorfles’ final work, a little less than a month before his death, dated 2 March 2018. It is a long dialogue with Aldo Colonetti, which revolves around one of his most important essays, Artificio e Natura (Artifice and Nature) (1968), one of the first international reflections on the transformation of nature by man, at the centre of which the designer’s role is fundamental. Dorfles returns to this theme after fifty years, indicating, on the one hand, an increasingly widespread problem and on the other, proposing a new design perspective in which, as Paola Antonelli writes, “ethics and aesthetics can coexist and prosper, with design examples all levels whose moral depth does not entail an aesthetic and sensual mortification.

In the middle, nature understood as the best creator, engineer and builder. In its design practice, nature considers beauty and efficiency, plans with intelligence and sensitivity and operates according to a cradle-to-cradle approach, building with determination and according to a longterm vision of the future”.

Here, some passages of that unpublished dialogue which remain, as always, illuminating to read and work concretely in the near-future.

Gillo Dorfles: Let’s begin with this consideration: man exists by himself as an object, but at the same time he is able in turn to create other objects, which are not necessarily artistic objects, but which are transformations of nature. They do not exist in nature but are “objectivizations” of something, from which the tension of planning, the incessant development of design and production, the system of “things” that increasingly become centrepieces, transforming themselves from “objects” to “subjects” takes off. It is necessary to understand that, unfortunately, Broken Nature is not only the result of a specific economic system: it belongs, and it is precisely from this awareness that it is necessary to reform the practice of design,

to the nature of man and in particular to his “creative autonomy” which it is at the same time both its strength and also its limit. Inventing from nothing beyond all limits, compared to all previous models: an infinite series of objects/ products which, although beginning from a functional model or necessity, which is always a symbolic necessity first of all, progressively assumes its own autonomy, moving away from the languages of nature, indeed often transforming nature as if it were an artifice, that is also understood as a product of man.

As has been said, the attitude of man to assume this sort of domination over the world has always existed, but it is above all in these recent decades, with the development of new technologies, that we are witnessing a worrying phenomenon.

This tendency is due to a particular condition of contemporary man: the totalizing identification with the concept of “creating”, which has spread from the traditional arts to the applied arts that do not remain in museums but determine the development of society, from the our homes to the cities we live in, from transport to the workplace, from the way we communicate to the creation of an artificial man. These transformations, apart from the immense material benefits they have brought to humanity, constitute a total diversification in the conditions of equilibrium between man and nature, creating a series of negative effects, both in our industrialized world and in other geographical areas, where development, although not present, uses up the “natural capital” by transferring it elsewhere.

It is my belief that from this point of view it is necessary to intervene, to re-establish a new balance between natural artifice, in essence, to try to mend, even partially, “broken nature”. It is necessary to ensure that art and design activities communicate with each other, without, however, trespassing into each other’s fields, otherwise the multiplication of objects will be relentless and infinite. We must never lose the originality of all our design actions, avoiding unnecessary imitations and self-referential replicas. Multiplying is positive, but without losing the originality that is inherent in the fact that it is in

Broken Nature, view of the exhibition Courtesy of La Triennale di Milano Photo by Gianluca Di Ioia

Art

It is a question of considering “nature” not just nature in the wild, but above all these new forms of mechanized nature, electronically integrated, “internet-ised”.

Totems, Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019 Courtesy of La Triennale di Milano Photo by Gianluca Di Ioia

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man’s nature to create incessantly. It is not possible to go back as if a sort of Eden of the project had existed, we are within history and within history, we must act.

Therefore, to obtain an improvement in the current situation, we must “redeem the unnatural”, transform artificial events into natural events, or “naturalized”, through action of will and knowledge.

It is a question of considering “nature” not just nature in the wild, but above all these new forms of mechanized nature, electronically integrated, “internet-ised”.

Man’s artificial constructions must be progressively “rectified”, undergoing this process of naturalisation that can only give him a new creative and symbolic value, keeping in mind and always keeping an eye on all research and inventions with respect to new materials

and new production processes that take into account both energy consumption and wasting of resources. However, without giving up creative freedom: more autonomy in the name of knowledge, less heteronomy because it leads to the repetition and imitation of what already exists. We will need more and more “new objects” that, despite having their raison d’être within the pre-existing material culture, are able to speak the language of a concrete, recognisable future capable of communicating with cognitive autonomy and interpretation that each person possesses, regardless of language, religion, or economic level. Everyone is a subject of freedom; this is its fundamental natural dimension; recomposing it progressively means acting in the sign of a nature that is no longer “broken”.

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HENRAUX 2018 SCULPTURE PRIZE FOURTH EDITION

The fourth edition of the Henraux Prize was held in the summer of 2018.

It was a special year full of emotions that saw radical changes in the jury membership starting with its president, Edoardo Bonaspetti, who was joined by other authoritative names in international contemporary art: Ilaria Bonacossa, director of Artissima, Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Gallery, Roberta Tenconi, curator at the Pirelli HangarBicocca Foundation and Andrea Viliani, director of the Madre, Donnaregina Museum of Contemporary Art. Cristiana Perrella, director of the Pecci Center in Prato, arrived at the Accademia dell’Altissimo, while Jean Blanchaert, Aldo Colonetti, Mikayel Ohanjanyan and Costantino Paolicchi were re-elected from the previous edition.

From the seventy-seven artist candidates - from Italy and abroad: Spain, France, Bulgaria, Austria, England, Ukraine, Belgium, Poland, South Korea, Armenia, Turkey, China, Japan, Russia and the United States - the nominated winners were Francesco Arena, David Horvitz and Diego Marcon. Exceptionally, a special mention was also given to the Anto.

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Milotta / Zlatolin Donchev collective.

If certain cornerstones of the competition have remained unchanged - such as the opportunity for the winners to carry out their projects in collaboration with the engineers and workers of Henraux, working marble in the quarries and in the company’s plants within the historic district of Querceta of Seravezza - there have been numerous and profound new innovations.

It is clear that a breath of fresh air has arrived from the words that Bonaspetti himself uses in the catalogue published for the occasion: “The Henraux Prize is an ambitious and articulated project, aimed at developing research in the potential of marble. The properties of this material are not only linked to sculpture in the traditional sense but to innovative fields of thought and creation”.

In fact, the winning works which will, for two years, until the next edition, represent Henraux in the world, express a new vision and send a strong and clear message: the celebration of the history and technique of the company, focal point of the past editions, now leave a place for a new symbolic universe that has more to do

with innovation, with excellence and with an international horizon.

In a word: with the future.

Because it is to this, but also to much more intangible, more closely linked to the dimension of enchantment, that the most modern contemporary art, the newest expressive languages, give access: a world full of signs which a company like Henraux - full of history and stories to tell - can draw on to enrich its identity.

“The preciousness of marble, its intrinsic material values have stimulated different forms of planning and creativity. The Henraux Prize, created to unite the White of Altissimo with the essence of the territory, presented the work of four artists who experiment with different conceptual ideas, but who traced in marble a fundamental stimulus to be transformed into sculpture”. commented Paolo Carli, the President of Henraux and Henraux Foundation.

All that remains is to wait for the appointment of the Prize’s fifth edition, a real and true preview of the celebrations for the company’s two hundred years of history.

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Clockwise from the top: Francesco Arena, Metro cubo di marmo con metro lineare di cenere (Cubic meter of marble with linear meter of ash), 2018, Bianco Altissimo, cigar ash, cm 100 x 100 x 100 David Horvitz, A Mountain / A Sea, 2018, Statuario Altissimo, various dimensions

Anto. Milotta - Zlatolin Donchev, Libro di vetta (Summit book), 2018, Arabescato Cervaiole, cm 100 x 9 x 55 Diego Marcon, Ludwig, 2018, Statuario Altissimo, cm 3 x 49 x 179

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LUCIO MICHELETTI

Lucio Micheletti, Vento

Lucio Micheletti is an architect, designer and artist. A true crossdisciplinary figure. Coming from the automotive world, he engaged in the nautical design industry for just under ten years - where he became the bearer of surprising visions - he also has a precise artistic identity that favours the language of sculpture.

Which of these definitions does Micheletti recognize most?

Talking about myself is always difficult, complex, perhaps because despite being an architect and designer and my studio work in different sectors - from hotel and theatre projects to design - I consider myself mostly an artist.

I love travelling with the headlights off and working with my team, dedicating myself only to the design, made up of signs and thoughts,

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technology and studies around the subject of man.

After two years of planning, Canova, the new Baltic 142 yacht, will be launched in June.

Can you tell us something about this project?

Every single boat has its own comfort that is dynamic and absolute, it has its own style, its own reading and its design path. The B142 is a boat designed to speak with the wind, equipped with DSS and electric motor, with a new vision of sail plan, it brings comfort to the sea.

We designed and followed the construction of 142 shaping empty and full volumes, by speaking and presenting the boat we realized that by changing the matter, the point of view, people start listening to your vision.

I always thought it was important to offer another perspective, another view.

What new perspectives does the Baltic 142 bring?

During January, at the DĂźsseldorf Boat Show, we presented the project to the press, I felt the need to bring attention to design as an element of balance, capable of recalibrating spaces and mitigating technology.

There is something in these spaces that gives you energy which creates well-being. For me it had become important to transmit this, to communicate it.

Also while in DĂźsseldorf, you chose to bring your own marble sculpture in order to present your work as a designer. Can you explain this choice to use the artistic language, and a

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Lucio Micheletti

material like marble, to express the language of design?

After the Venice Biennale, and Open 20, to which I brought a marble sculpture, I decided to carry out a more complete and more open artistic discourse.

In DĂźsseldorf, I prepared another work, of generous dimensions, once again in marble, which summarized my nautical work.

I needed a sculpture, not just a model, I wanted a debate, a dialogue with people.

I wanted to talk about shapes and profiles, about masses and voids.

To recount how volumes interact with colours, materials and balance everything.

This is our new and real challenge, balance, not perfection.

I wanted to give a strong but light touching message to marble with

The Canova

its (in)sustainable lightness, it was perfect.

Our attention always falls on materials.

Does your approach to them differ depending on whether you use them in design, architecture or art?

I cannot make a clear distinction between architecture, design and sculpture.

In naval architectural composition, we have to concern ourselves with increasingly sophisticated, light, almost metaphysical materials, in art it is different.

The Henraux team taught me to read marble in a new way with unedited transparencies.

I worked a lot on this boat (the Vento sculpture, editor’s note), but the hardest part was shaping it, making it dynamic.

I work with carbon, with lightness, I use noble natural materials but

always in search of lightness. When I talk about art, I think its strength lies in heaviness. I see a piece of art as an architectural object, which before being a decoration, has the function of bringing burdens to the ground.

So why not make a sculpture that refers to the work done, the volumes drawn, the calculations passed on?

To make a marble sculpture that in some way captures this work.

A simple work made from the wind and the sea. The lightness of the message is enhanced by the heaviness of the material. I like to re-read volume with marble.

It is a material that has an indelible, incredibly dramatic beauty. Perhaps art is a collateral beauty to our life.

Canova is the name of the boat.

The name of the artwork is Vento.

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HENRAUX MARBLE IN SAN MINIATO

The monumentality of the Henraux Collection met, during these past winter months, the medieval charm of the squares, monuments and plasterwork of San Miniato, in a collective exhibition en plein air of marble sculptures, the work of contemporary artists, both Italian and international: Fabio Viale, Mattia Bosco, Giovanni Manganelli, Francesca Pasquali, Daniele Guidugli, Mikayel Ohanjanyan, Kim De Ruysscher, Park Eun Sun and Helidon Xhixha.

In a joint interview we asked Paolo Carli, the President of Henraux, and Vittorio Gabbanini, the Mayor of the City of San Miniato, to describe the project that installed the collection of works of the Versilian Foundation - growing, with each consecutive edition of the Biennale Prize for sculpture - in the historic centre of the Tuscan village, transforming it into an expansive museum of contemporary sculpture. The exhibition gave birth to a historical-artistic journey, from antiquity to the future and in which it housed timeless beauty. “The Henraux marbles in San Miniato�, a title and a project, how did this agreement between the Henraux Foundation and the San Miniato Municipality come about?

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Paolo Carli: The collection of works by the Henraux Foundation, which is becoming increasingly enriched with each edition of our biennial sculpture prize, continues to receive much acclaim in both the public and private sectors. The sculptures that make up the collection, which are almost all monumental, were particularly appreciated by the City of San Miniato, with whom we designed the exhibition. The mission of the Henraux Foundation is to make its sculptures accessible to the public and to present them in open and public spaces. It is for this reason that the project was born, it aims to transform the streets and squares of San Miniato into a temporary contemporary sculpture museum.

Vittorio Gabbanini: We were invited to a Henraux Foundation event, it was an evening dedicated to marble and its multiple uses. When we came into contact with this world we realized the extraordinary beauty that brings this material closer to our region. So we began to think how it would be nice to create a journey through the art form of marble sculpture within the historic centre. And from this, everything started.

The contemporary forms of marble are

Mattia Bosco, Bue Tractor

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shown on the streets of San Miniato through the works of the Henraux collection, how do they change the visual aspects of the streets and historical places of the city?

P.C.: Even though Contemporary sculpture often represents singular subjects, abstract forms, even poor or unusual forms, it also retains an intrinsic value, which is that of the beauty of marble. The incredible quality of the sculptured stone

Michelangelo part of the history of both San Miniato and Henraux, what is the role of the Divine sculptor in these two individual stories?

P.C.: On around 1517 Michelangelo identified within Monte Altissimo, vast deposits of statuary: a beautiful finegrained and compact marble, which responded well to the chisel. In short, the ideal material for his works, the marble he had always dreamed of. In March 1518, he began the road that

makes the shapes precious. For these reasons, the works of contemporary artists create excellent connections between the past and the present, between the ideas of beauty and monumentality of past centuries and those ideas of today. Therefore the views of historical San Miniato enriched by the contemporary artistic language will certainly be a more complete vision.

V.G.: Through the marble, the historical and artistic wealth of the streets of San Miniato is highlighted even more, and they are still the undisputed protagonists. There is no corner of the historic centre where there is not a piece of history, a fragment of art to be grasped and savoured. This is why the majesty and grandeur of such a precious material do nothing but highlight its already extraordinary qualities.

proceeded towards Monte Altissimo in order to reach the quarries. But on 20 February 1520, Pope Leo X unexpectedly tasked Michelangelo with a “brief” and diverted him with the task of realizing the facade of San Lorenzo in Florence, which remained forever unfinished, and so the sculptor was forced to leave Versilia.

Michelangelo, however, had already initiated the excavation of marble in Versilia and more than forty years later - in 1568 - Duke Cosimo I Medici opened Michelangelo’s road to the foot of Mount Altissimo, activating the historic caves of the “Gruppo Polla”.

D’Annunzio described the Monte Altissimo as the “peplum of Nike”.

For D’Annunzio, the “Altissimo” , the mountain of Michelangelo, it was the broken dream of an immense sculptor who saw within its marble depths “... a crowd of sleeping statues”.

From the left Fabio Viale, Arrivederci e grazie (Goodbye and thanks) Daniele Guidugli, Moby Dick (vertebra) Francesca Pasquali, Frappa

Right Park Eun Sun, Colonna infinita (Infinite Column)

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V.G.: “In fifteen hundred and thirtythree I remember today how on the 22nd of September I went to Santo Miniato al Tedesco to speak to Pope Clement, who was going to Nice, and on that day Sebastiano del Piombo left me his horse”. It is precisely Michelangelo who writes about this meeting in his manuscripts. Pope Clement VII gives the Florentine artist the task of frescoing the Sistine Chapel during the meeting in San Miniato, a commission that was later confirmed by the later popes who succeeded one another. The Città della Rocca therefore deeply binds its name to the Florentine artist: to have marble works exhibited is a way to pay homage to his work and to all that it still represents today.

International contemporary artists show their extraordinary and monumental works in the streets of the city. Will future projects like this be created specifically for San Miniato?

P.C.: We have received a fantastic welcome for our works in San Miniato.

From the historical spaces that see a true union with our collection, to the will to make the project a real event for the city and its visitors. We hope that the marble is appreciated by the citizens of San Miniato and by tourists and that they represent an ideal complement to the beauty of the city, from which to bring forth new projects.

V.G.: I truly hope so. San Miniato is an open-air stage, a place where art returns home. Every time we have opened exhibitions or installed outdoor art, we have had the good fortune of having a “living room” ready to welcome us, a historic centre with lots of available and beautiful spaces, just waiting to be, if possible, valued once more. A journey through marble is what we lacked and, thanks to Henraux, today we have achieved our great desire.

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Aurelio Amendola and Paolo Carli during the set-up phase

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Schiavo ribelle (Rebellious slave) staging phase

FLESH AND SOUL.

MICHELANGELO IN THE PHOTOS OF AURELIO AMENDOLA

Summer 2018 was both for Henraux and the Foundation, a moment of great excitement. In addition to the inauguration of the new showroom, whose project bears the signature of Studio Archea, and of the fourth edition of the International Sculpture Prize, itself a harbinger of many changes, the old sawmill was transformed into an evocative exhibition space that showcased Aurelio Amendola’s extraordinary photographs dedicated to Michelangelo.

Curated by the architect Mario Botta, the exhibition celebrated five hundred years of the transfer of Michelangelo from Carrara to Seravezza.

We look back on this cherished moment with the texts that the curator Mario Botta and Paolo Carli wrote for the occasion.

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MICHELANGELO: FLESH AND SOUL

BY MARIO BOTTA

Aurelio Amendola’s black and white photographs, on display in the Querceta “Antica Segheria” Henraux (Summer 2018), bring Michelangelo’s figures back into a friendly atmosphere.

It is actually on the slopes of Mount Altissimo, just above Seravezza, that the Florence-born sculptor went looking for Statuary marble, the “live flesh” of the figures that he believed lived within the stone and that he brought back to life by removing the “superfluous”.

Now, the photographs of those creatures speak of a veritable return home, after roaming for centuries and astounding other men, bewitched by the beauty, the talent, the power and the grace of those stones in which the flesh and soul are at one with each other; live creatures summoned out of the polished surfaces by the artist’s creative “breath”.

The seduction of a timeless beauty resurfaces – unstoppable – from Amendola’s pictures engraved in black and white starkness, as a sort

of absolute aspiration we still have an infinite need of, as we plod along this global world.

The figures of the bodies are shapes that belong to our imagination and to our identity; relatable signs of Western culture, where one can still grow a ground of memory that can live on in this world.

Our thanks go to Henraux, then, who knows how to preserve a centuriesold tradition, and to Amendola’s fascinating work, that for decades has been chasing lights and shadows through the mysterious turns that Michelangelo carries along in his poetic form.

“YOU AND ME”

BY PAOLO CARLI When one speaks of marble and one speaks of art with the passion Aurelio has always put into its photos, something nice and sincere is bound to happen.

The one with Aurelio is a recent, but deep, friendship, one that has also been made stronger by our views

about Art, beauty, life, which are so similar, by our funny way of teasing each other, like Tuscans typically do.

And it’s actually a joke that gave us the idea for this exhibition, Henraux’s ancient mill, with its peculiar lights and its weather-beaten walls, “Let’s take Michelangelo to Henraux, you and me!” … “you and me”, a motto that we have often repeated to remind ourselves of our goals, our vision, our wish to show the outstanding beauty of marble, each in his own way.

In this truly special year that marks the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s arrival in Seravezza from Carrara (March 1518), I wanted to pay tribute to the Artist and to those who told about him in snapshots of undisputed force and beauty.

A double tribute in a setting, Henraux’s ancient mill, that embraces and emphasises the black and white Aurelio loved so much.

In photography, black and white symbolises memory, and for us at Henraux the mill is a place of memory, which brings us back to lived history, to a sense of belonging, of identity, and therefore to deep bonds.

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A DAY AT CAVA CERVAIOLE Marble as the centrepiece of an event that celebrates the values and excellence shared by antoniolupidesign and Henraux

The Cervaiole quarry, located in the southern part of Monte Altissimo, is a magical, incredibly suggestive place.

As you reach the top of the quarry, the view embraces a breathtaking landscape: from the Apuan Alps to the coast, stretching from La Spezia to Livorno, nature appears in all its overbearing beauty.

It surrounds the composed and geometrically ordered volumes of marble pallets.

It is from this quarry, a fine and refined marble, white and veined with grey, has been extracted for almost two hundred years, the Arabescato, to which the history of Henraux is inextricably linked: a stone of excellence through which the company for a long time discourses with the greatest architects and artists of our time, both in Italy and abroad.

The meeting between Henraux and antoniolupi stems from this common root: the concrete appreciation for both

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the material and the place of origin of the marble that we discover has also been the focal point of many of antoniolupidesign’s recent collections.

The synergy between the two Tuscan companies resulted in a unique event: at the Cervaiole quarry, at the end of the summer of 2018. Antoniolupi hosted over 150 people to whom they presented some pieces of their collections, immersed in an almost surreal atmosphere. It was an ideal situation in which the purity of the material met the formal expression of the project expertly.

In Cervaiole, a prestigious and striking setting, the charm and grandeur of the quarries have brought the original value of the material and the timeless appeal of the encounter between marble and design to the attention of the participants. The encounter between antoniolupidesign and Henraux did not give life only to a single event, but it also became a design meeting from

which PlissĂŠ was born, a freestanding washbasin entirely made of Carrara marble. The object is part of a journey that has been traced for some time by antoniolupi and the designer Paolo Ulian to investigate the relationship between a natural material such as marble and digitally controlled machining techniques.

The solidity of the material is softened by parallel signs that are repeated longitudinally on the surface. The traces of the work become ornamental, their development makes the structure lighter without relinquishing elegance. The volume of PlissĂŠ recalls the aesthetics of pleated fabric, with a vertical pattern, like a gathered piece, a surface that seems to move with lightness thanks to the variation of light and the play of light and shadow determined by the relief effect. It is an object with an iconic design that resembles nothing less than sculptural drapery.

Bulletin antoniolupidesign, PlissĂŠ Design by Paolo Ulian

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Bulletin antoniolupidesign, PlissĂŠ Design by Paolo Ulian

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