My Inspiration and Aspirations
Surrender to the Marble – if you must work it!
Throughout my childhood, my family and I have embarked on lot of road trips across India, but the one that’s set in my memory is that of visiting the quarries. My uncle owned a Makrana marble quarry in Mount Abu, Rajasthan and come the start of every summer, like clockwork we would pay him a visit.
I categorically remember the day he took us to see the Quarry for the first time – in an open jeep, the kids standing on the backseat and driving into this large expanse of limestone. Engulfed by this white pristine surrounding; and as we went deeper, I became smaller and smaller amongst the large mountains of stone around me. And then, there it was, right in the middle of all off natures abundance enormity – blocks of marble, cut out in shape and stacked in soul southing symmetry. Ready to be sent to its final destinations across the globe.
While my uncle was explaining the whole process to my dad, I stood silent and still gripping the jeeps railing, absorbing every possible minute detail my young mind could absorb. I was just in Awe!
Amazed, ecstatic, awestruck and befuddled in equal measure – it was a whole new world for me, and I loved every second of it. And I wanted it for me, to own one of these quarries right there and then.
Marble Quarry
The name is derived from a Greek word “marmaros” which means shining stone. We all have been inspired by this inimitably precious and irresistibly intriguing material that fascinates with its distinctive characteristics, colours, patterns, texture, and finesse.
Be it Artists, Architects, or interior Designers we all have evolved with this material, going back centuries, carved into the annals of history, Monumental Ruins to Lavish Interiors – The famous statue of Moses & David by Michelangelo, The Taj Mahal, Leaning tower of Pisa, The Pantheon, right to today’s state-of-the-art and inventive designs and use of this brilliant, time tested, history carving stone.
The Taj Mahal, India
Dome Of Rock, Jerusalem
Parthenon, Athens
Considering its quality, versatility we invariably work with marble on most of our projects using it for flooring, wall cladding, building facades, furniture, decors et al.
Some of our usual places are the Classic Marble Company – A showroom and factory spread over 40 lacs square feet, it has every kind of stone in various colors, sizes stacked separately making it easier for us designers to choose from.
The other being the Nitco Factory in Silvassa – an excellent facility with minimal human dependency considering the critical working with large marble and stone blocks. I always visit the whole automated process they have every time I am there.
The formation of marble involves a series of complex strides and processes – right from the cranes picking up the blocks and placing it in the sawing machine, seeing it being sliced to precise thickness, automatically turning it with robotic hands and vacuum cups into the kilns and further for curing and filling to the final polishing. A step-by-step process made to look so efficient!
It’s been a beautiful journey with marble, we are trying to use it at its rawest form in our upcoming projects. Keeping the originality intact, it’s exciting to see how its molding us to it rather the other way around.
It’s a journey going inward – as if the marble is talking to me, telling me how I should use it, how to shape it. Sometimes I don’t remember whether the marble was in the design, or the design was in marble.
Even today – I am a child when in the quarries. It never ceases to amaze me and as I my interest and knowledge has grown, it speaks to me, guiding me to use it at its best, it brings out the child in me.
My unabashed fascination with mother nature and all her wonders, the power it holds, they say it has!
Like a kid in a candy store, but my choice of candy or rather, one of my favorites, the cooling feel of marble within my touch and sight.
Till we speak again!
