Promotion book on natural stone (design public works in stone)

The C.T.M.N.C. piloted the publication of a very complete and very educational book on the design and construction of stone public spaces.

The nine chapters of this 320-page book cover:

1. the requalification of the public space,

2. the diversity of stones and stone products,

3. the characteristics of the stones and order of the products,

4. the design of roadways in cobblestones and natural stone slabs (structural dimensioning, geometrical dimensioning),

5. implementation,

6. the training of the men of the art,

7. maintenance and operating conditions of roads and public spaces,

8. the stone for sustainable development,

9. technical sheets for the construction of apparatus and boards of standard structures.

35 Euros instead of 52.75 Euros to be ordered directly from Pierre Actual

Marble company creation Eclypse, France

Ely Labaye worked in the building. On the occasion of an experience in funeral parlor, he became passionate about the marble industry.

He has just created, in Aigurande (36), his masonry-marble business, Eclypse. It offers as main services the laying of vaults, the maintenance of burials and the creation of funerary monuments. He also practices marble work in the renovation of buildings, bathrooms and pool surrounds.

Carrara marble 1

The famous Carrara marble is not only a symbol of luxury. The site has especially become one of the high places of calcium carbonate extraction, used in particular in the manufacture of toothpastes. An industrial exploitation that disfigures the landscape and is accompanied by deaths on construction sites, pollution and resource grabbing by a local elite and international actors, including the bin Laden family and the Swiss multinational Omya.

The whiteness of the place is misleading. From a distance, the quarries of Carrara recall the contours of a glacier. Approaching, it is a mining basin that spreads before our eyes, an off-white tablecloth laid on the flanks of the Apuan Alps. On this summer day, dozens of trucks loaded with rough marble blocks crisscross the mountains devoured by diggers. In these steep paths, our 4x4 vehicle struggles to climb to the Michelangelo quarry, where marble statuario is extracted, one of the most expensive, sold up to 4,600 francs per ton.

Here a dozen workers are busy under a blazing sun. Riccardo, 52, including thirty in the Tuscan quarries, tackles a block of marble with a diamond wire saw. The heat is stifling. "In summer, the yard is a real furnace. In winter, it is cold and wet, "blows the son and grandson of a miner. He explains with pride what his job is, before concluding: "I hope, however, that my son will do something else in life."

High risk work

In careers, despite the efforts made in recent years, security is not flawless. On July 11, a block of marble stored in a warehouse collapsed with Luca Savio, 37, father of a little boy. A few weeks earlier, in May, another worker lost his life, Luciano Pampana, 58, crushed by a digger. "The slaves continue to shed their blood in Carrara," exclaimed Father Raffaello during his homily: "The Apuan Alps have been savagely scarred and if not many have taken advantage, some have become very rich!"

"Slaves continue to shed their blood in Carrara"

Don Raffaele, priest of Carrara

Angelo Mangiarotti, a marble master at RBC Paris

The Parisian showroom of RBC, located in the 15th arrondissement, offers until November 23, an exhibition dedicated to the Italian master of architecture and design Angelo Mangiarotti (1921-2012). On the sidelines of the Paris Design Week, this exhibition named "Angelo Mangiarotti: skilful reflections" presents the iconic creations of the master, marble and wood, which are reissued since 2010 by Agapecasa, the entity positioned on the habitat and the contract d'Agape, an Italian company specializing in the world of high-end bathroom. The creations on display reflect the designer's ability to imagine marble furniture without joints or tightening: the Eros tables (1971) for example, consist of a frustoconical foot - wider at the base than at the top - which supports the plateau by simple gravitational embedding, the whole being blocked by the weight of the material, which gives lines of a great simplicity and purity.

The creator goes even further with the Eccentrico elliptical tables, which consist of an elliptical plane inserted asymmetrically into an inclined cylindrical foot, the whole holding in balance thanks to a learned calculation of distribution of forces. Agapecasa also reissues Mangiarotti's equally inspired wooden creations: a system patented more than 50 years ago, the Cavaletto library is a modular program consisting of an inverted V-shaped trestle element, which can be superimposed thanks to a simple gravitational joint, and can accommodate shelves to block by a "dovetail" assembly. As for the Incas table, with its legs trunk-pyramidal trapezoidal section, it is declined by the manufacturer as well as marble solid wood.