Marmomac 2024, to be held 24-27 September at Veronafiere, looks set to be an edition that aims to consolidate the role of the event as a platform for business, training and culture for all operators in the Italian techno-lapid supply chain, but not only.
“In the contemporary context,” comments Raul Barbieri, Veronafiere Sales Director, “natural stone continues to be a material of great prestige and versatility, capable of adding value to any architectural or design project with its beauty and unique properties. Marmomac plays a crucial role in promoting the innovative use of this material, highlighting its most cutting-edge applications through a series of side events, including exhibitions, workshops and conferences”.
Marmomac focuses on creative and technological development and progress, bringing attention to how marble can continue to be a material to be experimented and transformed to convey its timeless elegance in infinite ways. For this very reason, the event also represents an important added value for professionals such as architects and designers who can connect, be inspired and develop new collaborations on an international level at the Verona Exhibition.
Marmomac confirms itself as a highly international hub, with 66% of visitors arriving from abroad in 2023, representing 138 nations. With more than 1,500 exhibitors attending each year, the exhibition provides a unique showcase for a complete overview of the latest innovations in both stone products and machinery and tools for processing and caring for marble and granite.
In addition to this, visitors will benefit again this year from a series of initiatives that have contributed to creating a real Marmomac community that also lives on in the rest of the year, both online thanks to the Marmomac Plus digital brandroom that brings together the top players in the sector, and offline, with networking missions organised abroad such as “We speak stone” in Chicago.
he 2024 edition will once again host A Matter of Stone, curated by Elle Decor Italia with a layout designed by studio Calvi Brambilla. Hall 1 will host a selection of Italian and international companies exhibiting design productions and applications in a creative and stimulating context intended for architects, interior designers and professionals.
Hall 10 – The Plus Theatre – curated in concept by Giorgio Canale, will once again be the centre of experimentation dedicated to natural stone. This year’s theme will be matter, the protagonist within a real district that develops around a central avenue overlooked by the exhibitions, the meeting area and the refreshment areas. The individual exhibitions are designed to highlight the many facets of natural stone, offering a complete and in-depth view of the subject, recounting the constant relationship between stone and machines and showing the countless varieties found in nature and the most modern technological processes.
Giorgio Canale, in addition to the general curatorship of the pavilion, conceived the Walk of Stone exhibition, inspired by the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, but making natural stone the protagonist. This homage highlights the extraordinary richness of natural materials, bringing out their colour differences, textures and details. With a walkway of about 300 square metres, the work offers an exclusive showcase for Italian and foreign companies, allowing them to exhibit and enhance one square metre of their best creations.
The Full/Empty exhibition, curated by Raffaello Galiotto, sees the involvement of international designers and companies from the stone sector who, starting from Giorgio Vasari’s quotation that “Sculpture is an art that by removing the superfluous from matter reduces it to that form of body designed by the craftsman”, will freely explore the relationship between fullness and emptiness with a series of marble works created in the age of new digital instruments.
Also curated by Raffaello Galiotto is the exhibition Viaggio al centro della tavola (Journey to the Centre of the Table), which brings together a series of new works designed by him. When faced with an empty table, we are commonly led to place an object in the centre of it. A reassuring gesture, guided by our innate sense of order and balance. From this need, the concept of the centrepiece has developed over time: an object usually of particular value, in terms of workmanship or material, that has both decorative and functional purposes. The exhibition is therefore proposed as a colourful and fascinating composition of stone tables formed by a tabletop carved from a slab and a centrepiece worked with the most advanced numerical technologies.
After the success of last year’s edition, The Applaud, curated by Danilo Di Michele, returns to promote stone culture and highlight the extraordinary potential of natural stone. The protagonist of the installation that will take shape during Marmomac is The Handkerchief, inspired by one of the first works designed by Fulvio Bianconi for Venini. The latter will be involved together with other production partners in the stone sector to create the important sculpture that will combine the strength and grandeur of marble with the sophistication and delicacy of the iconic glass vase. The process, carried out under the watchful eyes of visitors, will allow visitors to fully appreciate the complex collective work of the companies to create the extraordinary natural stone creation.
As part of Marmomac meets Academies Giuseppe Fallacara curates the exhibition Ceci n’est pas un fossile, realised thanks to the creativity of students from several Italian and foreign universities and the support of companies in the stone sector.
The project focuses on the theme of stone design of the future, mainly focussing on the close relationship between knowledge and know-how, theory and practice, craftsmanship and technology. These concepts will be realised in an innovative set-up that stages a hypothetical design “workshop” of the future where computational design coexists with digital fabrication and craftsmanship with all its related technical tools.
ADI Delegation Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige investigates the design world in the exhibition Architectural Modules.
Architecture is constantly mutating and evolving from wet building sites to dry building systems. Serial products and parametric design are integrated into the design of buildings and environments. Thanks to the collaboration between designer and company, new three-dimensional construction elements will be developed for façades, walls and interior spaces using the technologies of the participating companies.
Hall 10 will also host a wine bar and a bistro, conceived to ensure that even moments of relaxation and refreshment will be immersed in two spaces dedicated to celebrating natural stone in its most refined tactile and aesthetic expressions.
Inevitable will be the Best Communicator Award, the prize dedicated to exhibit design now in its 16th edition, which will celebrate the companies that present the most original and incisive exhibition concept.
