(Verona, Italy – November 3, 2008) – Marmomacc 2008, held in Verona from October 2-5, reaffirmed the show’s role as the most important global trade event for the stone sector and for stone-related design and technologies. 27,000 trade visitors from 120 countries – 45% of the 63,000 total visitors – and 1,530 exhibitors from 54 countries. Despite the economic downturn, Marmomacc managed to attract growing numbers of buyers, specifiers, architects and builders from all over the world. Stone design continues to be one of Marmomacc’s major draws. Stone trade professionals congregate in Verona each Fall to see the impact of new technologies on design. The “Marmomacc Meets Design” (MMD) project, generated more innovative booth designs. MMD 2008 paired leading international designers with 15 stone processors. The pairings focused on this year’s theme -- stone as texture or “skin” -- in developing everything from objects to entire booth designs. This theme reflects the increasing focus among architects on selecting materials, including natural stone, on the basis of their surface texture, whether in creating objects or in cladding buildings. Two of the MMD booths shared the Marmomacc Best Communicator Award, presented to the booths with the best visual approaches to conveying the richness and potential of stone. The winners: -Il Casone for Claudio Silvestrin’s “Quarry” booth design; and -PibaMarmi for Michele de Lucchi and Philippe Nigro’s “Palisade” booth design. Silvestrin, de Lucchi and Nigro were among the many designers involved in this project who were present at Marmomacc. A number of companies received “special mentions” from the Best Communicator Award jury for their booth designs: Vaselli Marmi, Grassi Pietre, Franchi Umberto Marmi, M+Q Italia, Henraux, Lithos Design and Iaconcig. Other pairings for the MMD project included Mario Bellini/Mineranorge, Riccardo Blumer/Scalvini Marmi, Roberto Canovaro/Marmo Arredo, Aldo Cibic/Quarella, Stefano Giovannoni/Grassi Pietre, Massimo Iosa Ghini/Budri, James Irvine/Marsotto, Simone Micheli/Odorizzi Porfidi, Pietro Ferruccio Laviani/Citco, Pongratz Perbellini Architects/Testigroup, Marco Piva/Lasa Marmo, Denis Santachiara/Marmi Ghirardi, and Luca Scacchetti/Santa Margherita. Marmomacc also hosted the tenth edition of Veronafiere’s continuing education programs for architects, which now includes courses in Italy, the U.S. and online. To commemorate this special anniversary, architects who had participated in previous editions of the course were invited back to take part in a special “Reunion” program that took place in Milan, Trento and Verona. A second group of architects -- from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., India, South Africa and Australia -- spent four days studying the importance of stone in modern design. Participants visited quarries in Verona and Querceta (in Tuscany, near Lucca), various stone processing facilities and even Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli. Nearly 50 architects participated in these programs, which are recognized by the American Institute of Architects, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and the Royal Institute of British Architects. The dates for Marmomacc 2009 are September 30th–October 3rd.
