"Inside Marmomacc" welcomes a large educational series with projects, proposals and prototypes from various faculties of architecture in Italy and abroad.

The Marble Forum, conferences and seminars are once again a focal point for architects and designers, industry professionals, students and professors, engineers and technicians who have the opportunity to explore various issues associated with stone.

Marmomacc & Design -- Fluide Stone

Cultural projects at Inside Marmomacc include Marmomacc & Design, a project to help exhibiting companies and young designers collaborate on research in the stone design field. The company/designer path has already been undertaken with top quality results in the past, and there is an important innovation as of the 2013 edition: the participation of talented "under 30" designers with the aim of creating an ideal link between the past, present and future of new generations of creative minds.

Developing the theme of the Fluid Stone project -- conceived by Aldo Colonetti and Paolo Baldessari -- involved identifying a number of designers specializing not only in traditional design, but also in new technologies, visual languages and multimedia tools. They were then matched with companies and given the task of interpreting stone in a modern and innovative way, making it more supple and flexible to achieve a product capable of penetrating the market, while always retaining the awareness of the essence of the material and its possible rendering in "objects."

Companies taking part include:

• Marble Chiampo Consortium with Andrea Gross Gaiani and Giulia Regalini
• Grassi Pietre with Ilaria Vergani Bassi
• Imercrea with Beatrice Novara
• La Quadrifoglio Marmi & Graniti with Federico Elli of About_Blank_Project
• Lavagnoli Marmi with Attila Veress
• Margraf with Isacco Mantegazza
• Piba Marmi with Enrico Carucci
• Marmomacc with Francesco Benciolini and Alice Schillaci

Best Communicator Award 2013

The Best Communicator Award  -- now in its seventh edition -- has made a distinct name for itself. Conceived as a way to highlight the importance of exhibition spaces as an effective means of communicating the qualities of natural stone, this award is open to all exhibitors attending Marmomacc.

Setting up an exhibition booth is becoming increasingly strategic for companies, which clearly perceive its role as a direct and immediate tool for attracting visitors and involving them in a stimulating journey -- not only presenting products and materials, but also conveying values and emotions.

International Award Architecture in Stone - XIII Edition

Marmomacc 2013 welcomes the 13th edition of the prestigious International Award for Architecture in Stone, the biennial prize celebrating the best architectural projects involving the use of stone materials.

The award boasts a prestigious jury comprising of renowned historians, critics and professors of architecture: Klaus Theo Brenner (Faculty of Architecture, Potsdam), Alberto Ferlenga (Department of Architecture, IUAV University, Venice), Luis Fernández Galiano (Director of Arquitectura Viva), Fulvio Irace (Department of Architecture, Milan Polytechnic University), Vincenzo Pavan (Department of Architecture, University of Ferrara).

The jury, chaired by Pavan, met in March and analyzed 29 architectural works implemented over the last several years in 11 different countries. After thorough analysis and extensive discussion, the jury chose the following works for their architectural quality and expressive use of stone materials, considering them to represent a significant panorama of the best achievements on an international scale:

• Aru Associates: Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, India
• Alberto Campo Baeza: Seat of the Council of Castile and Leon, Zamora, Spain
• Max Dudler: Castle visitor centre, Heidelberg, Germany
• Mias Arquitectes: Re-qualification of urban spaces, Banyoles, Girona, Spain
• Carl Fredrik Svenstedt: Stone House, Lubéron, France

Special Mention was awarded to "Sassi" Office Matera for the Casa Cava Auditorium and Cultural Centre in Matera, Italy. The "In Memoriam" award (dedicated to a past master) was given to Alessandro Anselmi (1934-2013) for the Parabita Cemetery in Italy.

The "Vernacular Architecture” Award was given to dry-stone architecture of the Mediterranean: Navetas, Taulas, Barracas, Muragghi, Pagliari Puglia, Sicily, Spain and  Balearic Islands. It was curated by Pavan

Marmomacc & The City 2013

Returning after huge success last year, Marmomacc & the City is an exhibition of stone sculptures and installations set up in the centre of Verona and reserved for companies taking in the main trade fair.

Another initiative that saw huge success last year is "Marmomacc & The City," an exhibition of stone sculptures and installations set up in the center of Verona and reserved for companies taking part in the main trade fair. Organized in collaboration with Arch. Laura De Stefano, the Order of Architects and Verona City Council, Marmomacc & The City aims to bring stone culture closer to the public at large to stimulate a more modern and contemporary reinterpretation of this ancient material.

From the opening of the event on September 25 through the end of October, squares and gardens will become an open-air museum, where the nine companies involved in the project will each exhibit one work in stone, thereby extending the perimeter of the event into the city itself through these highly original items. Companies taking part include: Barsimarmi, Cave Marmi Ac, Franchi Umberto Marmi, Grassi Pietre, Imercrea, La Quadrifoglio Marmi & Graniti, Lavagnoli Marmi, Margraf, Marini Marmi, Marmobon, Piba Marmi and Fratelli Testi.

Stone Academy 2013

The Marmomacc Stone Academy will return once again, thanks to an association linking universities, professions and institutions involved in activities embracing training, research and academic and professional education in architecture about the use of natural stone. From its origins in 2005, the number of universities belonging to the network has progressively expanded, especially since 2011, and the Stone Academy was officially founded in 2012.

Today, more than 20 universities and professional organizations have joined or taken part in training programs with CFU or CFP recognition -- with new agreements with national and international universities, such as the Schools of Architecture in Florida and Ljubljana.

Marmomacc, in recent years, has played an active and vital role in the promotion and dissemination of what universities are achieving in terms of teaching, research and experiments involving stone architecture -- with a constantly expanding presence on the national and international scene.

For the first time, the 2013 edition of Marmomacc will welcome a large group of university centers for a roundtable discussion on guidelines for the architectural education sector.