Architects who attend the Marmomacc Stone Academy in Verona, Italy, have a chance to view all aspects of the stone production process — from extraction at the quarry to slabbing to final polishing of cut-to-size pieces
As part of the events surrounding Marmomacc, the world’s leading trade show for stone and design in Verona, Italy, an AIA-approved “Designing with Natural Stone” course takes place that week. More than 235 architects from across the U.S. have participated in previous editions of the course, and it includes “field trips” to local quarries as well as to natural stone processing facilities. During last year’s event, the architects saw the full cycle of stone processing, including visits to a marble quarry, block-cutting plant, slab-processing facility and cut-to-size shop. The following is a look at the various stops on a single day of the tour:
The day began with a visit to Cave Bonaldi, a site for producing Rosso Verona marble that is considered to be one of the most historic quarry sites in the Sant’Ambrogio region. The significance of the material is evident throughout the villages surrounding the quarry, where large blocks of Rosso Verona marble were used to form centuries-old walls that still stand proudly today.