Exhibition
The exclusive exhibition at Lapicida opens on the 6th June 2009 and has been commissioned to celebrate 500 years since the birth of Italian Architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580).
The exhibition is supported by the Italian Government, designed by Raffaello Gailotto and crafted by an Italian consortium of stone cutters. Each piece showcases Palladio's original design profile and the exhibition includes a number of unique pieces such as a limestone bath and matching basins, a terracotta round marble shower and various inspired wall claddings and floorings. The collection of limited pieces is on sale, please contact Lapicida direct for full details.
Lapicida is honored to have been chosen to showcase the Palladio collection. The team at Lapicida has worked with the Italian designers to make Palladio a first class exhibition.
This exclusive exhibition will be on show at Lapicida until June 2010. For more information or details of how to attend the exhibition please contact Lapicida
Palladio: the rise of a stonecutter
Amalia Sartori
The Chairwoman of The National Committee It is particularly significant that on the occasion of the quincentenary of Andrea Palladio's birth, an important Vicentine productive partnership celebrates this great architect with an exhibition devoted to his stone works which presents in a contemporary way some Palladian works of art. Few were as influential as Palladio over the centuries and his success was a result of the extraordinary aesthetic quality of villas, luxurious buildings and churches. But we shouldn't forget that he moved the first steps as a stonecutter in Padua when he was 13, in the workshop of Bartolomeo Cavazza. Then he fled to the nearby town of Vicenza where he became an assistant in the leading workshop of stonecutters and masons Giacomo da Porlezza e Girolamo Pittoni, known as "i compagni di Pedemuro". Palladio has never disregarded his former apprenticeship as a stonecutter and has always designed personally the stone details of his buildings, such as column bases and capitals, door and window frames, wash-stands and fireplaces.
For this reason, the exhibition mounted by the Consorzio Marmisti di Chiampo symbolizes the dynamic interaction between the world of architecture and the craftsmen which has been characterizing our region for five centuries through the impressive production of art and craft works. The wonderful fireplace in the Sala della Pace of Palazzo Barbaran da Porto in Vicenza and the wash-stand of the refectory of S. Giorgio in Venice, reinterpreted through contemporary eyes, make us conscious of the modernity and vitality of Palladio's legacy. This kind of initiatives are really important as they demonstrate how the celebrations for the 500th Palladio's birth represent the expression of the legitimate pride of a region which gave birth to one of the major representatives of the worldwide cultural scene. It is also a good opportunity to reaffirm that this historical background of excellence is the starting point of our contemporary work.
Tribute to Palladio Chiampo Valley Consortium of Marble Workers The 500th anniversary of the birth of Andrea Palladio prompted the group to study a project inspired by the production of the most well renowned "Stone cutter" in the world. The age-old art and skill of stone-working boasted by the marble workers of Valle del Chiampo and the high standards of applied technology reached have helped pave the way towards stone design, a path pursued for some time now. Research, originality and creativity, which have always been the hallmarks of the Chiampo marble workers' craft, together with the involvement of the designer Raffaello Galiotto, have created an extraordinary working relationship. Studying the lines associated with Palladio and reprocessing them, the designer has managed to create a collection of works in marble, stone and granite of contemporary design, offering a new demanding challenge for our technical and productive skills, giving life to a new industrial philosophy. The combination of the experience of the marble workers of Valle del Chiampo and the use of advanced instruments and technologies has helped make the "Palladio and lithic design" project a reality. The elements making up the "Palladio and lithic design" exhibition create an extremely varied collection, in terms of working method and selection of materials, an authentic expression of the degree of versatility and skill enjoyed by the companies involved in production.
By concentrating on design, technological innovation, eco-compatibility and the combination of materials and their functions, highly ambitious objectives have been achieved. The study of the materials used has played a fundamental role in this project. It is fascinating and moving to discover how the great architect Andrea Palladio is still able to inspire our modern ways. That is why this research has been for us a means of "re-appropriating" part of our history and contributing to its development.
Palladio and lithic design
Raffaello Galiotto
Designer To celebrate the quincentenary of the birth of this great architect the marble craftsmen of the Consorzio of Chiampo gave me the honour of trying to find an idea that could bring to light some aspects, perhaps not well known, of Palladio and show the high level of professionalism of the workmanship in the Chiampo area connected with working with stone. I started by setting out a path which then became the title 'Palladio and Lithic Design', which embraces the 3 terms that constitute the exhibition itself: -Palladio, design and stone. During our research the object was to understand whether within the ambit of Palladio's work there were works or elements in marble which could be traced to the concept of design. In what I would say a surprising way an underlying theme emerged from the comparative study of the works and drawings. I’m not talking about the obvious personality of the architect but of a recurrent geometric profile. A shape formed by a series of curves, ornamental traits, a large rounded curve, ending with other mouldings at the foot. I thereafter designed the objects of this exhibition on this profile and even if in a flattened or simplified shape one can find that it is always present. The projects, born on paper as sketches, were then elaborated on in detail by my studio with sophisticated 3D programmes after which, using the best available technology, they were made in marble, stone and granite by the expert marble craftsmen of the Consorzio of Chiampo.
Palladio designer
Franco Barbieri
International Center of Architeture Studies Andrea Palladio Leaving to one side the well-known and much visited path of Andrea Palladio the architect, we would like on this occasion to direct our attention to some aspects of his work, erroneously considered as marginal, which do instead reveal the careful artistry of his 'hand' and the unmistakeable signs of his 'style'. To justify our case we start from a precise declaration made by Andrea himself: since 'beauty' results exactly from 'the relation between everything and the parts, between the parts themselves, and from them to everything', 'buildings' therefore will have to 'seem as a whole and well-defined body, in which each member is joined to the other and all the members are necessary for what one wants to do'. Words that have rightly been cited recently as proof, once again, that Andrea believed that even elements, that in themselves are not strictly essential in construction but are needed to satisfy normal comforts or a desire for decoration, should also 'conform' to the fundamental 'principles of embellishment and propriety'...
The drawing of palladio
Maria Elisa Avagnina
Director of Vicenza Civic Museums When Gaetano Pinali, jurisconsult and collector from Verona, donated his Palladian drawings to the Museum of Vicenza in 1838, it was his concern, as he himself wrote, that "the educated traveller and the architectural historian" visiting Vicenza on the trail of Palladio should have the immediate opportunity to gain access "to such remarkable curios, namely to the examination of the original projects drawn by the esteemed architect". Such a generous gesture, imbued with the ideals of civilty and enlightenment, placed the precious "little treasure of Architectural Art" in the custody of a public institution. This made it possible to keep it in its original location, the Veneto area and to save it from the diaspora, which under different circumstances took most of the drawings by the illustrious architect to England. The didactic concern of this learned patron of art well matches the didactic and divulging intent of Palladian works which becomes fully evident in his famous writings, where his extraordinary gift for communication is confirmed. Made up of 33 folios - 17 of which contain illustrations also on the verso side - for a total of 50 drawings, the Pinalian corpus, which has been housed in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe at Palazzo Chiericati since its donation, represents a significant specimen of Palladio’s intense designing activity: from the remarks deriving from the study of classical antiquity, which the architect could directly view and thoroughly measure with "utmost care",
as stated in the prologue to the The Four Books of Architecture, to the drawings of the ancient world reproduced from other artists' originals and enriched by his personal notes; from the critical study of lost ancient monuments to the precious sequence of "presentation drawings" relating to important Venetian works, in their final version to be presented to the people who had commissioned them, such as the marvellous folio with the counter-façade of the church of San Francesco della Vigna, reproduced in the text. By undauntingly and devoutly reassessing traces of the classics, Palladio obtains a repertoire of shapes, the canon of proportion, the elegance of details which permeate his projects and which his writings would disclose not only to his contemporaries but also for posterity. The strength of the Palladian lesson, the extraordinary vitality and relevance of his style to the present day are confirmed by the experience presented in this catalogue, where, encouraged by the re-elaboration by an endowed designer in tune with Palladian incunabula, the Consortium of marble craftsmen from the Chiampo Valley - Palladio's "colleagues" since he started as a stone-cutter and like him they are skilled experts in the materials– present original creations of modern and yet ancient shape which succeed in meeting both the demand for design and functionality. Hence the great architect's most genuine and fruitful spiritual inheritance comes to life.