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Cibic & Partners per Grassi Pietre, one of the winner of the first edition

43rd Marmomacc – Verona 2/5 October 2008
Marmomacc presents the second edition of the Best Communicator Award for exhibitors at the Show. The Award aims to highlight the importance of “exhibit design” for understanding of the constructive and decorative potential of stone materials, as well as the services offered by exhibitors. The second edition of the Award is also an occasion for Marmomacc to valorise its image.

The design of stands for exhibition events, even in the stone sector, ensures added value since it is a very effective tool in communicating the vocation of the company. In such an important context as Marmomacc (2007 saw 1,536 exhibitors from 53 countries over a net area in excess of 71 thousand square metres, not to mention 63 thousand visitors from 120 countries), stands must be capable not only of attracting visitors through a high-impact image but also and especially of representing exhibitors themselves.
It is no coincidence that the winners of the last edition of the Award highlighted important collaborations between stone industry professionals and well-known architects: Il Casone with Kengo Kuma; Grassi Pietre with Cibic & Partners; Piba Marmi with Damiano Steccanella. The set-up designed by Kengo Kuma saw Serena stone transformed into thin slabs of different thicknesses, assembled in a modular structure resembling a house of cards. This solution for the backdrops of the stand embellished the environment with transparencies and plays of light and shade that turned this essentially “heavy and monochromatic” material into something perceived as lightweight and expressive. In the same way, Aldo Cibic focused – in a rather small space – on the interpretation of the vertical “brise soleil” cladding details proposed by the company. This set-up hid service, reception and product catalogue areas to focus on a communicative synthesis: the two vertical, corner walls could be approached by means of a stone gangway on a bed of greenery that embraced nature and artifice. Lastly, Damiano Steccanella designed a stand with a continual passage between the exterior and the interior where various objects were displayed: from the marble drawers by Michele de Lucchi, to the product catalogue of Piba Marmi.
These examples demonstrate the versatility of stone materials in creating temporary spaces and express the capacity of such set-ups to achieve a poetic vision, emotional impact and communicative effects. Exhibition stands do not merely indicate the simple presence of the company but can highlight research and production quality. And these values emerge in the care devoted to the setting itself, its details – the sensitive juxtaposition between products on show and the components of the set-up itself or else their coherence. It is not just a question of highlight architecture but first and foremost the interpretation of the identity of the exhibitor.
Stone it is a particularly stimulating element for “exhibit design”, since it promotes elegant dialogue between different materials, surfaces and finishes, forms and functions of the objects and the space. As already mentioned, such set-ups make it possible to demonstrate to visitors the potential use of materials and processing operations. Inasmuch, the exhibit design project also becomes a kind of “joint venture” between the architectural sphere and company marketing.
During Marmomacc 2008, an authoritative jury comprising Mauro Albano (Brand Manager of Marmomacc), Aldo Bottoli (ADI Industrial Design Association), Oscar Colli (Il Bagno Oggi e Domani), Vincenzo Pavan (Marmomacc Consultant for Architecture), Livio Salvadori (Casabella) will make the award to the best stand.

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