PROSPECTING For stone to be extracted from the ground and fabric…
PROSPECTING For stone to be extracted from the ground and fabricated for architectural use, the first step is finding deposits that will yield large, roughly cubic blocks that can be cut into smaller blocks, or, more commonly, slabs that are thin and flat. Cylindrical borers drill down as far as 5 meters for sectional samples of stone to determine precisely its properties and its potential to yield commercially viable blocks.
Jameson Simpson
QUARRYING "Bench cuts" as deep as 3 meters coax the marble out i…
QUARRYING "Bench cuts" as deep as 3 meters coax the marble out in enormous blocks. These cuts, made with a large diamond-wire saw, are first made behind what will be the extracted block, and then beneath it: Precision is crucial. Heavy-duty shovels help to wedge the material away from the mass of the larger deposit. Workers lay out a bed of softer rubble around the block (right) so it lands gently when it rolls over a step known as the bacio, or kiss, because it needs to land in just the right place.
Jameson Simpson
CUTTING At the Henraux finishing plant in the nearby town of Que…
CUTTING At the Henraux finishing plant in the nearby town of Querceta, stone arrives from all over the world for finishing and then shipping to parts equally far-flung. Big bridgelike cranes, or gantries, span the yard and roll back and forth to move the heavy blocks around. One of the first steps is to square the irregular edges of the blocks (left) with a diamond-wire saw (right). The square blocks are then moved under gang saws, which act like outsized food slicers, slicing the blocks into thin slabs as if they were loaves of bread.
Jameson Simpson
FINISHING Once the block is sliced into thin slabs–all individu…
FINISHING Once the block is sliced into thin slabs–all individually bar-coded–the pieces are moved to Henraux's finishing operation. Some are covered with an epoxy resin to fill in the natural cracks and then placed inside a catalysis oven. A round of abrasive polishing (left) removes excess epoxy from the surface. After inspection (right), the finished stone is then packed in pest-protected wood crates and shipped all around the world.
For people who might otherwise use money as wallpaper, there is no finishing or cladding material quite like the icy white and silver surfaces of marble from the mountains around Carrara, Italy. Of the numerous marble species that come from this area, one of the finest is Arabescato, taken from the Cervaiole quarry. The quarry is owned by Henraux, which puts the stone through rather low-tech but precisely choreographed paces between the shoulder of a moutain and a fancy hotel’s bathroom.
