marsotto edizioni at milan design week 2010

marsotto edizioni at milan design week 2010 ‘sultan’ ‘taksim’ and ‘gelata’ by konstantin grcic image © designboom

‘marsotto edizioni’ brings together designers of various nationalities to realize products made entirely of marble. the collaboration was initiated by marsotto, producers of granite, marble, stones and composite stone fittings and designer james irvine. upon participating in the most important marble and stone fair in the world, irvine soon realized the great potential in using marble not only for flooring or masterpieces as seen in the past but applying it to the design of accessible products.

‘sultan’ by konstantin grcic image © designboom

‘marble, in a sense a forgotten material, has been rediscovered over the past few years. some extraordinary pieces have been realized. however they have always remained rather exclusive…marble is in fact a rather normal material in Italy. why not try to do some accessible products, we asked ourselves? above all why not try to do pieces which are totally in marble? not just the top of a table, or a chunky ashtray.‘ – JI

‘sultan’ by konstantin grcic image © designboom

‘marsotto edizioni’ soon became a venue through which designers could bring to life their ideas. with a list of contributing designers such as konstantin grcic, james irvine, jasper morrison, maddalena casadei, naoto fukasawa, thomas sandell, they have collectively created almost 30 products. the designs created in white carrara marble are made using CNC machinery and finished by hand. the marble derived from carrara is 190,000,000 years old. it is estimated that there are 60,000,000,000 cubic metres of marble in the mountains of carrara. ‘marsotto edizioni’ products were showcased during milan design week 2010.

‘sultan’ by konstantin grcic image © designboom