BEWITCHING, CAPTIVATING, CONSUMING AND ANCHORING, STONES ARE THE LITERAL AND PROVERBIAL JEWELS IN MAN’S MATERIAL CROWN. WHETHER MINING FOR GEMS, EXCAVATING ANCIENT RENDERINGS, UNEARTHING MARBLE OR UNDERTAKING ANY OTHER ACT THAT DELIVERS ROCKS FROM THEIR MOORINGS IN THE GROUND, THE SENSE OF DISCOVERY THAT COMES FROM FREEING THESE ELEMENTAL RELICS FROM THE DEEP TO FIND A PLACE IN THE SPOTLIGHT OF OUR DAILY LIVES IS AS MOVING AS THE ITEMS THEMSELVES—AND PART OF THE ALLURE OF THE TIMELESS TREASURE HUNTS THEY INSPIRE.
BRECCIA CAPRAIA QUARRY CARRARA, ITALY MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022 3:55PM
CANOPIC JARS HELD ORGANS LEFT BEHIND FOR THE AFTERLIFE THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM – CAIRO, EGYPT THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2022 9:09AM
PHOTOGRAPHY
POLISHED BRASS UNLACQUERED FINISH WHITE LINEN
GILPIN
BIT WALL
SHADE
INTERIORS BY BAILEY AUSTIN DESIGN BY KACEY
92 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
CHILTERN SINGLE WHITE FINISH WITH HEWN BRASS UNLACQUERED SHADE INTERIORS BY KARINA PLOTKO INTERIORS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCO RICCA
ANTIQUE MIRROR ON CLEAR GLASS
TRANSLUCENT
CHP VINTAGE FINISH VINTAGE ACCENTS
PHOTOGRAPHY
FRANCIS
ARCHITECTURE BY MITCHELL STUDIO BY KIRSTEN
INTERIORS BY RACHEL SLOANE
DOUBLE ARM BELDI BLACKENED STEEL FINISH BRONZE SHADE EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR INTERIORS BY ERIN A. CANTU INTERIORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY VENJHAMIN REYES
HUNTLEY ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH WITH CLEAR GLASS INTERIORS BY CARTE BLANCHE, PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANGELINA ALONZI MAISON VILLEROY, PARIS, FRANCE
96 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
INTERIORS BY MUNGER INTERIORS BY ALLAN EDWARDS BUILDER
GLOBUS
FINISH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL HUNTER
GLASS
HEWN BRASS UNLACQUERED SILVERED
ACCENTS PARTIALLY
BUILD
INC.
HEWN BRASS UNLACQUERED
ANCIENT CEILING DECORATED WITH STARS KARNAK TEMPLE — LUXOR, EGYPT FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2022 9:39AM
ROCK
of AGES On the trail of ancient quarries, pharaonic feats and Earth's most imperial material with Marmi’s charismatic chief, Magd Riad. العصورصخرة A journey from CAIRO to CARRARA and beyond.
Stone upon stone upon stone.
This massive pile rests on the Mokattam Formation, a plane of limestone solid and stable enough to support the weight of 2.3 million blocks, each weighing on average two and a half tons. As staggering as this weight of blocks is, it’s the pace of construction that is dizzyingly incom prehensible. According to Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson, “builders would have had to set one 2.5-ton block of stone in place every two minutes during a ten-hour day, working without pause throughout the year for the two decades of Khufu’s reign (c. 2545-2525 BC).”
The ancient Egyptians were impressive record-keepers, both in stone and on papyrus, yet for all we know about 30 dynasties across 3,000 years, there remain profound mysteries. The Great Pyramid is perhaps the most iconic example: how did builders choose a site and know that what lay underground was strong enough to support such a colossal weight? How did they manage to orient the monumental form to true north and be off by only one twentieth of one degree? How did they not only phys ically put the blocks in place (and move them from the quarry) but cut the outer blocks so precisely that not even a knife blade could slip between the joints? In many ways, ancient Egyptians put the civilized into civilization.
one is the limestone pyramidion coated in gold, the ultimate quadrilateral crown that reflected the rays of heaven. Gone is the gleaming skin of polished limestone from the quarries in Tura that turned pure geometry into a blinding desert iceberg. What remains, though, is the largest ever pile of stone, the core of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza, Egypt, the oldest and only survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World. For nearly 4,000 years it stood as the tallest man-made structure on Earth. Aside from limestone for the main building blocks, the pyramid was larded with other stone: basalt from the Fayum Depression and alabaster from Hatnub near Luxor and red granite from Aswan lining the walls of the King’s Chamber.
IMMENSE BLOCKS OF POLISHED LIMESTONE ONCE CLAD THE GREAT PYRAMID OF KHUFU.
FEARSMANTIME,BUTTIMEFEARSTHEPYRAMIDS.”
One thing we know with absolute certainty: stone was as elemental to the ancient world as broadband is to ours. For Egyptians, the afterlife was paramount. If you wished something to last for eternity, you chose stone. Or as an Arab proverb succinctly puts it, “man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.”
G
“
— ARAB PROVERB
102 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
Layers of stone at Saqqara.
Though Giza has grown up around the Great Pyramids, from certain approaches the view is as old as the monuments themselves.
The immense enclosure wall at Saqqara, with its endless niches, is as impressive as its stepped pyramid, the first built in Egypt.
Magd was born in Egypt, and though he has lived in the U.S. for most of his life, his trips back are frequent, both to visit his father, an energetic retired general, and as an ambas sador for his native country. He has put together innumer able trips to Egypt for loyal clients, who inevitably become friends and for friends, like Urban Electric’s Dave Dawson, who become clients. As Magd introduces them to all things
At the necropolis of Saqqara, for instance, recent revela tions keep coming: in 2018, the 4,400-year-old tomb of royal priest Wahtye; in 2019, hundreds of statues and mummified animals; in 2020, 52 burial shafts with more than 50 wooden coffins dating back 3,000 years and the funerary temple of Queen Nearit, the wife of King Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt. And as recently as this past spring, five stone tombs of high-ranking officials that are even earlier, from the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2200 BC) and First Intermediate (c. 2181–2055 BC) eras. Yet, of all of the treasure that has been unearthed over the past few centu ries, it represents scarcely a third of what lies below.
tone is also fundamental to the life of Magd Riad, who would appear to fear nothing except for a dull time. As president of Marmi, a major supplier/ fabricator/installer of all kinds of stone for archi tects and designers in the United States, Magd travels the world to find just the right blocks and slabs for his clients. He may deal in all that’s hard and heavy, but you’ll not find a lighter, softer, more affable and entertaining fellow—his animated face is the antithesis of the stern phar aonic visage.
CAIRO, EGYPT
107THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
S
Magd is no less a wizard at harvesting stone than he is at hosting visitors to his native land. Witness his arranging the
LONGTIME URBAN ELECTRIC DOCUMENTARIAN ANNE CHANDLER WITH MAGD RIAD, PRESIDENT OF MARMI.
THE DOOR TO THE AFTERLIFE, PRINCESS IDUT’S TOMB AT SAQQARA.
Egyptian, he too learns new tidbits because ancient Egypt, it turns out, is a land of surprises and discoveries.
To demonstrate the 54-degree “angle of repose” that the pyramids assume, Fatma gathered a handful of sand and let it leak slowly from her tightly closed fist. The pile it formed was the perfect pyramid, a simple illustration of nature as a design force. No wonder Fatma is equally adored by clients, curators, colleagues, security guards and common Egyptians who take pride in their history. Though she appeared only briefly on the telecast of the Pharaoh's Golden Parade, a grand procession celebrating the transfer of 22 royal mummies from the Egyptian Museum to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, she was greeted the next day like a conquering hero. It seems all of Egypt had seen her on TV. For a guide with 32 years of experience, it was welcome recognition.
...for all of the treasure that has been unearthed over the past few centuries, it scarcelyrepresentsathird of what lies below...
FATMA ABDALLA, A BRIGHT GUIDING LIGHT.
EGYPTOLOGIST
ONGOING EXCAVATIONS AT SAQQARA CONTINUE TO DELIVER TREASURE.
trip's guide and guiding light, Egyptologist extraordinaire Fatma Abdalla. Armed with deep knowledge, unflagging enthusiasm and a brilliance in storytelling, she keeps us intrigued and entertained. If our focus strays, she corrals the wayward with a cheery “yallah!”; when all is understood, she proclaims “voila!”
108 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
A row of cobras rises up to greet the great stepped pyramid at Saqqara.
Master builder Imhotep created not just a pyramid but an entire stone complex to serve as the necropolis for Memphis, the ancient capital of lower Egypt.
Even better known than the Narmer Palette is the Rosetta Stone, a stele carved of granodiorite that exists in the Egyptian Museum only in replica. The original Rosetta Stone, prized for providing the key to deciphering hieroglyphs, lives ( like the Elgin Marbles) in the British Museum. However, the building of a monumental new showcase, in this case the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), makes an argument for repatriation. After multiple delays, GEM is opening this year as the largest archaeological museum complex in the world. There will finally be space enough to put on display all of the treasure that emerged from the tomb of a minor pharaoh, Tutankhamun. One can only imagine the embarrassment of riches that were robbed from the tomb of Ramesses II, a pharaoh who reigned 56 years longer than Tut.
113
F
atma relayed information about pharaohs and deities, symbols and glyphs, architecture and painting, as well as about stone. In the Egyptian Museum at Tahrir Square, she made a beeline to the Narmer Palette, a finely carved ceremonial palette of gray-green siltstone dating from the 31st century BC. Cited as the first historical document in the world, it is thought to mark the creation of Egypt by depicting, in some of the earliest hieroglyphs, the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under King Narmer.
t times the talk of stone between Fatma and Magd was like call and response, each filling in the other’s gaps in knowledge. But in the Cairo stone yard of Marmi, Fatma surrendered her guide cap to Magd and to the company owners: the Abdalla family (no relation to Fatma). Between their two sites in Cairo and 40 quarries, the Abdallas have for 50 years been quarrying, sawing, polishing and processing more than 250 types of stone: primarily granite and marble but also onyx, alabaster, quartzite, travertine…the list goes on.
Marmi is a vast sampler of all that can be done with stone. Cut one way, a block of Egyptian alabaster yields slabs in a stripey linear pattern; rotated 90 degrees and cut another, the slabs burst into cloudlike blooms. For a memorial, lasers deeply etch calligraphic Arabic. A multi-colored carpet-sized slab reveals itself, on closer inspection, to be a composite of hundreds of different marbles cut and assembled to mimic an Azerbaijan rug. By the offices, a slab of Imperial Grey marble captures, in graphic Ed Ruscha lettering, Euripides’s dictum, “leave no stone unturned.” At Marmi, not a chance.
“Stone is like jewelry,” says Claude Abdalla, the family patri arch. “It can be common or rare but the strong colors— greens and reds— are like emeralds and rubies.” And as with contemporary gems, stone here is cut using, well, cuttingedge technology. Ancient meets advanced, with granite from the oldest continually operating quarry in the world, in Aswan, submitting to the diamond blades of a 21st century Italian gangsaw from Gaspari Menotti. Where it once took nearly a week to saw one block into slabs, now 60 slices can be cut in six hours.
(continued on page 129)
MAGD RIAD INSPECTS A “CARPET” OF MANY MARBLES AT MARMI IN CAIRO.
RED AND BLACK GRANITE FROM THE OLDEST QUARRY IN EGYPT MEETS THE MODERN WORLD IN A SCULPTURE BY STEPHEN COX.
A
114 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
LIKE FINGERPRINTS, EACH SLAB CUT FROM A BLOCK HAS A UNIQUE IDENTITY.
MAGD WITH CLAUDE ABDALLA'S SON, GEORGE.
SAWS WITH DIAMOND CHAINS SLICE THROUGH MARBLE AND GRANITE.
A FIVE-TON BLOCK OF MARBLE BEING CUT INTO SLABS.
MANEUVERING STONE TAKES AS MUCH SKILL AS CUTTING IT.
Artist Jill Hooper using her pencil to visually gauge scale for a painting of a marble cutting machine.
Beyond the landscape, architecture and subject matter, however, it was stone itself that captured her imagination. Hooper was drawn to the subtle variations in color and texture, the endless nuances of its elegant veining. The challenge of rendering stone’s complexity in two dimensions, as she did so masterfully in the artwork on the following pages, she found both captivating and satis fying. “Being present physically makes all the difference in the world,” says Hooper. “I couldn't have gotten the same information by just googling any of it. You had to be there to understand it. See the textures, feel the heat of the sun, you know.”
here are always clusters of visitors in front of the Temple of Luxor, a 3,400-year-old complex around which modern day Luxor has grown. But this throng close to the majestic pylon was especially impressive. More than 50 people had gathered around, a silent crowd captivated by the act they were witnessing. At the center of it all was not a performer but still a magician of sorts, classical realist painter Jill Hooper.
Adept at rendering an expressive face in 20 minutes, Hooper easily nailed the likeness of a guide at a stone yard or men in conversation in a piazza. The monumental architecture
T
ARTIST not in residence
Jill Hooper
Proportion came into play just as much with the colossal sculptures she encountered. “Initially I thought the Egyptians were naive about human anatomy,” Hooper says, “but far from it. The large legs and strong arms were just a reflection of everything pharaonic being larger than life. I was actually bowled over by the giant majestic sculptures and how much of an effect they had.”
of Egypt, though, presented far greater challenges than portrait studies, especially working within the same time constraint. “It’s not just being mindful of perspective and proportion,” Hooper says, “but also trying to make it have life and vitality, as art does.”
Though Hooper typically spends a lot of time in the studio, either her own in Charleston, South Carolina, or those at the London Fine Art Studios, where she teaches master classes in composition, pen and ink, and oil painting, this time she was literally on the ground in Egypt and Italy, recording en plein air what ever caught her eye. Hooper always paints from life and looks the part of the artist–dressed nattily in a fedora and crisp white shirt with a kerchief at the neck. Seeing her at work, seated in the dirt, gave the curious onlookers their own sense of ancient history, a throwback to earlier times when drawings were the only way to visually record aston ishing sights.
129 ITALYCARRARA,—QUARRYCAPRAIABRECCIADETAIL,STONE
NILE STUDY
1 NILE STUDY 3
NILE STUDY 2
ENTRANCE AT SAQQARA — CAIRO, EGYPT
JILL HOOPER
EGYPT
STONE CUTTING FLOOR AT MARMI — CAIRO,
ITALYCARRARA,—QUARRYCAPRAIABRECCIATOROAD
Jill Hooper in her Charleston, South Carolina studio, with an oil painting of a rams-head sphinx at Karnak underway.
Rows of rams-head sphinxes, each protecting a pharaoh between its paws, flank the approach to the necropolis at Karnak.
F
Opposing rows of rams-head sphinxes followed by a vast forecourt lead to the Great Hypostyle Hall. A forest of 134 massive sandstone columns cresting in papyrus blossom capitals presents a cathedral of light and shadow, dwarfing travelers who play peek-a-boo around the column bases.
THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE 129
So supercharged is the scale that fifty people could stand together atop a capital. Every surface is embellished, either inscribed or carved into bas-relief, and with the largest columns reaching 69 feet high with a girth of 33 feet, the surface area is considerable. So all-encompassing is the decoration that it fairly disguises the seams between the massive disks of stone stacked to form the columns. Again, how did they build them?
or major building projects, the ancient Egyptians primarily used limestone and sandstone. Karnak sits in modern day Luxor (ancient Thebes) at the juncture of the two stones, with sandstone predominating as you move south. As monumental as the Great Pyramids are, Karnak is an architectural masterpiece, a demonstration of Egyptian construction prowess more complex than mighty. The largest temple in the world (the Vatican of its day), it dwarfs St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Over the course of 2,000 years, thirty successive pharaohs worked and reworked this complex on the east bank of the Nile.
LUXOR, EGYPT
TOWERING COLUMNS AT KARNAK ONCE LIVED UNDER A WOODEN ROOF.
What reveals itself more slowly than the magnificence of scale or the generations of bas-reliefs and inscriptions is the coloration. Just as the Acropolis was never white but in fact a highly polychromed temple, so too was Karnak not a sea of pale brown that blended into the landscape.The bright and deep colors that adorned the columns are less worn by time than hidden by dust and sand. When the columns are periodically cleaned, yellows, reds, blues and greens bring cartouches, figures and animals vividly to life.
PAPYRUS-SHAPED COLUMNS WERE CONSTRUCTED OF MASSIVE DISKS OF SANDSTONE.
130 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT)
A GRANITE DOORWAY FRAMES A VIEW OF A WELL-PRESERVED COLUMN. 134 COLUMNS MAKE UP THE GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL AT KARNAK. A STATUE OF A KING AMID THE PALMS.
The carvings and coloration of columns at Karnak are remarkably vivid, especially when cleaned of sand and dust.
n Egyptian with the Ministry of State for Antiquities has described Karnak as an archaeological ocean the surface of which scholars have barely dipped below. The same could be said of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, across the Nile from Karnak, where virtually all treasure lies beneath. The valleys are shielded by dry and dusty mountains snaked with forking paths and punctuated by deep portals to tombs. Just as impressive as the construction of monuments above ground is the extensive tunneling and hollowing out of rooms, all accomplished thousands of years ago using bronze chisels and adzes. Steep ramps and stairways in narrow tunnels deliver great reward: rooms embellished wall to wall to ceiling with striking paintings.
A
For all of their liberal application of bright colors, painters made heavy use of black outlining, much as the kings, queens and notables dramatically accentuated their eyes, eyebrows and lashes. Once again, stone comes into play, in its minutest form. Makeup was derived from azurite and malachite ground to a fine powder for eye shadow and soot combined with the mineral galena to produce kohl for the heavily-lined eye synonymous with Cleopatra. Black shading both made for striking eyes and protected from glare. Think football players and Friday night lights.
133
None are more vivid and beautiful than those in the tomb of Nefertari, often cited as the Sistine Chapel of ancient Egypt. Her tomb is a testament, like the Taj Mahal, to eternal love, that of Pharaoh Ramesses II for his first and favorite queen, “the one for whom the sun shines.” Beneath a deep blue sky of a thousand painted stars, the richness of the afterlife and the beauty of Nefertari herself are rendered in exquisite and vibrant detail across 5,200 square feet of plastered surface. The intensity of colors more than 3,000 years old is due to mineral-based pigments. Unlike synthetic paints, they no more lose their color than gems, especially when tucked away in the dark.
The Egyptians were excellent record keepers, even on the ceilings of tombs such as that of Seti in the Valley of the Kings.
I
136 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
HARVESTING WHEAT ALONG THE RIVERBANKS.
n contrast to the valley’s tombs—their heat and dust and the abundance of stone—the Nile brings a fluid gracefulness to this hard-edged land. The longest river in Africa, waterway of legend and civilization’s birth, the Nile is lifeblood to Egyptians, making irrigation, transit and tourism possible. And for travelers like us, its rich green banks and placid waters refresh and restore. Antony and Cleopatra honeymooned on the Nile in a gilded barge, but for modern day travelers, dahabiyas, with their limited number of cabins (8-10) and shallow draft, offer the most intimate and comfortable way to cruise the river, and none is nicer than the Eyaru, a new vessel low on kitsch and high on authenticity and amenities. Osama Boshra not only manages the boat but designed every feature down to the dining chairs with their lion legs, the tableware made in the pottery town of Garagos and djellabas of crisp cool Egyptian cotton for sale in support of single-mother seamstresses. At the buffet, traditional dishes like koshary and bamia bil lahma are always accompanied by Shamsi bread (traditional loaves left to rise in the sun), the very same as the offerings depicted in the wall paintings of Nefertari’s tomb.
THE NILE
THE NILE IS A LINEAR OASIS OF PALMS AND GREENERY.
Typical dahabiya tours cruise the Nile for three to four nights from Luxor to Aswan or vice versa. Though a far cry from the three months early tourists devoted to their Egyptian sojourns, our few days onboard are spent in much the same way, languidly touring sites not reached by bigger boats, napping, reading, playing backgammon, feasting and taking in the unfolding panorama of the shoreline. Atypically, this was a fast cruise to Aswan, though it afforded downtime in the cabins and deck-time digesting all of the insights gleaned from Fatma. We basked in Magd’s entertaining ways and observed painter Jill Hooper render quick watercolor landscapes. A lucky few even took a stab at painting under her tutelage.
The lateen sail of a felucca catches a breeze on the Nile.
A riverbank view unchanged
for millennia.
swan is where dahabiyas share the waters with a flotilla of feluccas, the traditional wooden sailboat rigged with lateen sails. The cluster of boats with sails hoisted created a view as seen from the terrace of the Old Cataract Hotel that could be cast in sepia, so closely does it recall the Agatha Christie golden age of travel on the Nile in the early 20th century. Here we made our last stop in Egypt—a Marmi quarry nearby that is so fully situated in the heart of town that it can’t operate during school hours so as not to disturb the students next door. In the quarry, men were drilling deep parallel holes in order to release a chunk of stone from the mass, a technique much the same as ancient times, except pneumatic tools dramatically hasten the job.
Aswan granite was second only to sandstone and limestone as the most important stone used by ancient Egyptians, who used it for the smallest vases to colossal statues and obelisks. Carved from a single block of red granite, towering obelisks were erected in front of temples, usually in pairs, as guardians and in recognition of the value Egyptians placed on balance and harmony. Given the length and weight of the stone needles and the difficulty in erecting them—how that was achieved in ancient Egypt is still a matter of speculation—the degree to which they have migrated to distant shores is astounding. London and New York each have a Cleopatra’s Needle. Whether apocryphal or not, Josephine’s directive to Napoleon, “if you go to Thebes, do send me a little obelisk,” confirms the esteem accorded the form. Not one for small gestures, Napoleon's campaign delivered. A 75-foot-tall obelisk from the pair that Ramesses II originally erected at the temple at Luxor now guards the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
A
Obelisk at Karnak Temple, Luxor,
Egypt.
MINERVA OBELISK, ROME.
ASWAN TO ROME
143THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
Roman taste in stone though leaned heavily to marble, and for that they discovered quarries in their own backyard–the Apuan Alps in northern Tuscany. Nothing rivaled the purity of the white marble, Statuario, found here. For Michelangelo, it was the marble of his dreams, “of compact grain, homogeneous, crystalline, reminiscent of sugar,” and was his stone of choice for his Pietà and David. Like the great columns at Karnak, Trajan’s Column in Rome is also a towering stack of round blocks embellished with carvings, created from Statuario.
B
TRAJAN'S COLUMN, ROME.
FLAMINIAN OBELISK, ROME.
ut Rome is where one finds the lion’s share (or pharaoh’s share) of obelisks from ancient Egypt, not surprisingly, given that Rome annexed Egypt in 30 BC. Eight in total pin down some of the most significant piazzas in the Eternal City: Piazza del Popolo, St. Peter’s Square, Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, Piazza della Rotonda. Tasked with the job of erecting the 357-ton obelisk at St. Peter’s, Renaissance architect Domenico Fontana employed no less than 75 horses, 900 men and an endless supply of rope and pulleys.
145
o numerous are the marble quarries above Carrara and neighboring Massa that the mountains look capped by glaciers. While most quarries are open-air, the one used by Marmi is internal, a cavity of vast damp rooms that feel only more ominous the more the stone is cut away and removed. The unnerving sense of the oppressive weight looming overhead is countered by the staggering vista from the forecourt—a skyscraping view of shadowy mountains stretching to the Ligurian Sea.
More marble has come out of the Carrara quarries than any other place in the world, and extracting it from a mountain will always be dangerous work. Stone may well be an eternal material, presenting an eternal test by nature to wrestle it for human purposes. Perhaps this is, in part, why marble remains so valued, so exalted, from ancient times to present day. The stone in the Apuan Alps has been around for some 200 million years, and though the very purest Statuario is largely tapped out, there remains at least 500 years worth of marble to excavate. For Magd this means only one thing: “Good,” he says, “let’s get to work.” To which Fatma would succinctly add, “Voila!”
The route to the top is as old as time and still as treacherous. When thousands of Roman slaves were quarrying here, it took one to two years to extract a block and bring it to sea level. Now the job of cutting is done in two days' time by as few as six men, using diamond wire saws, but the transfer down the mountain is still perilous. Truck drivers need to be as skilled as quarrymen to navigate narrow switchbacks and sheer drops with a payload of 35 tons at their back.
S
THE APUAN ALPS TUSCANY, ITALY MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022 1:47PM
MARLBOROUGH HEWN BRASS LACQUERED FINISH WITH MIRROR ON COBALT BLUE GLASS INLAY AND PARTIALLY ETCHED GLASS INTERIORS BY BARBARA GISEL DESIGN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DURSTON SAYLOR
148 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
HEDGES HEWN BRASS UNLACQUERED FINISH FARROW & BALL NO. 255 TANNER'S BROWN ACCENTS INTERIORS BY LEIGH FALKNER INTERIORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL BLEVINS
CHISHOLM CLEAN BLACK FINISH HEWN BRASS LACQUERED ACCENTS INTERIORS BY HENDRICKS CHURCHILL PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM LENZ
CHAMBERS BRONZE AHEIRLOOMFINISHACCENTSCREATIVECOLLABORATION BETWEEN THE URBAN ELECTRIC CO., ALLISON ABNEY INTERIORS, DANIEL BECK ARCHITECTURE AND GROSSMAN BUILDING GROUP.
153
POP ROUND ANTIQUE BRASS FINISH WITH BENJAMIN MOORE #1120 HONEYCOMB PAINT SELECTION ACCENT INTERIORS BY SCOTT LASLIE
MALPLAQUET FLUSHMOUNT BENJAMIN MOORE #714 HIDDEN FALLS PAINT SELECTION FINISH HEIRLOOM ACCENTS INTERIORS BY STEVEN GAMBREL PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIC PIASECKI / OTTO
“WITH STONE, YOU'RE WORKING WITH COLOR, TEXTURE, NATURE, VEINING, PATTERNING, SO MANY VARIABLES.”
157THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE STONE Luminary
GAMBREL STEVEN
AS ONE WOULD EXPECT, STEVEN GAMBREL’S LATEST PERSONAL RENOVATION PROJECT IS A MASTERCLASS IN MATERIAL. A TOP-TO-BOTTOM REVAMP OF AN 1854 BROWNSTONE IN NEW YORK’S WEST VILLAGE, THE GRAND SPACE SHOWCASES MANY OF THE HALLMARKS AND HISTORICAL REFERENCES THAT HAVE MADE HIM AN ESSENTIAL VOICE IN THE DESIGN WORLD. A SNEAK PEEK, AS IT NEARS COMPLETION, REVEALS THAT STEVEN'S LIBERAL USE OF STONE VARIETIES AND PERMUTATIONS IS THE TRUE BRILLIANCE.
he has visited stoneyards far and wide, noted the use and handling of stone from the ancients to 20th-century architects such as Sir Edwin Lutyens and Piero Portaluppi and seems poised to join the ranks of the latter as his eye for, and skill with, stone becomes ever more refined.
In his latest, and he swears, last personal renovation project in New York City, Steven has indulged his utter love of stone with panache. Twenty-two different kinds crop up in nearly every room and elevate an 1854 Italianate brownstone with 13-foot ceilings on the parlor floor to an even loftier place.
158 THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE 02 01 03
teven Gambrel was always the go-to designer for interiors with strong, if subtle, historical references and even stronger color. Whether the dose of color was big (an entire room spectacularly “dipped” in luscious aubergine), medium (orange inset panels of a ceiling in a wood-paneled library), or small (bright red picture frames for a collection of black and white photographs), saturated color was a statement in every one of his projects and quickly became a signature of his work.
S
“I viewed dense color as luxurious,” Steven says who, as a student of history, knows that before the development of chemically-produced paint, particular deep shades were indeed the provenance of the few and the privileged, as their pigments were derived from expensive natural materials.
Steven is still known for his deft handling of color but his palette has both evolved and softened as his career has progressed. He now more fully appreciates the luxuriousness of materials with heft and history—plaster, bronze, wood and stone. Materials with inherent coloration. While still enamored of the power of paint, it is stone that he studies and parses, lusts after and celebrates. Always an avid researcher,
In the main bathroom shower, grey onyx frames panels of one of Steven's favorite stones, Breccia Verde Seravezza, as well as serving as baseboard and chair rail throughout the room.
02 A bronze-framed shower door matches the elegance of Black Venato marble framing the doorway in a guest bathroom.
04 06 05
04 Twin octagonal sinks in the main bathroom that appear carved from a solid block were masterfully pieced together.
06 When Steven found the solid marble tub upstate, it was serving as a planter and buried under a variety of foliage.
A longtime collaborator with Urban Electric, Steven granted us access to capture, in progress, one of his most personal projects to date, his own NYC townhouse, as it neared completion. 07
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
01 The final piece of a Black Levandia frame awaits installation atop a guest room fireplace faced in Portugal Pink Borba.
07 A striking composition in Black Venato marble and Midnight Rose marble in a guest bathroom.
03 Steven inspects a mantelpiece of Breccia Verde Seravezza and Bardiglio Nuvolato he designed for his bedroom.
05 A mantelpiece of Black Kilkenny marble in a guest room.
Long ago I learned a valuable lesson, one of those happy accidents that is so instructive. There was a limited amount of a particular stone I loved that I wanted to use in a room so I had to start reducing its coverage on the walls. I ended up adding Venetian plaster, and the result was a better balance. Less weight physically but more importantly, less weight visually, and still a sense of dimension and materiality. That is the approach I took to my bathroom.
161THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE STEVEN GAMBREL AS TOLD TO THE URBAN ELECTRIC Co.
N
inety-nine percent of my work, I would say, is about visual framing. I think of it as a way of containing things and working out proportion. And one of my favorite things to do is to pair stones. So the working out of the framing is my architecture and the pairing of stones is my art form. Stone is such a different medium. I go to a stone yard or to my desk and pull samples, and pair, for instance, a five-inch frame with the center stone it surrounds. And when we nail it, when it's right, it is extremely rewarding.
that we have. The pairing was completely beautiful except for the fact that it's not what I wanted. For me, the contrast was just too exaggerated.
I had this piece of Breccia out on the desk for weeks and tried pairing it with every stone we have in our sample library (and we have, thanks to the generosity of our vendors, well over 500). Then I went out to every single stone yard with my piece in hand, and I held it up to a hundred other pieces of stone. All along in my office, was a small sample of a piece of onyx that I had passed over because I find onyx sometimes to be too rich, especially when it’s polished. And this piece was really warm, verging on melted caramel. But every time we put it next to the Breccia, the pairing just worked. Together they were stunningly beautiful.
Beyond the pairing of the two stones, what I eventually realized was that every surface in the room (the border stone, the center stone, the plaster walls, the bronze hardware, the fumed oak floors leading to the bathroom) had to cancel the others out so that nothing spoke too loudly. And each needed to carry its own weight and measure up to the others in terms of materiality. Painted drywall is a weak link when you’re dealing with natural materials, especially this much stone. If you get every detail to a certain level, if you keep all your choices equally strong, if you keep the volume of quality and consistency up on every material, it actually quiets the whole story, it balances it.
But the turning point for me was meeting Eliot Mazzocca of Lido Stone Works. He and I are around the same age, and we built our businesses at the same time. He’s a stone guy who is just wicked talented, but more importantly, he never says no to any detail. We build each other up. When you have someone like that in your life or in your career, the effect is you do better work.
In Italy we found this block of Breccia Verde Seravezza and it was exactly perfect. It’s spectacular, ancient, fabulous. I had a sample in my office, and I started trying to pair it because I knew I wanted a different stone for a border and baseboards. Had this been for a client coming in for their big presentation, I would have chosen this dark green stone
So much of my increasing involvement with stone comes down to people and resources. Now, with technology, slabs can be photographed straight-on instead of at an angle so you get a true picture of the character of the stone. And then with the computer and Photoshop, I can play around with the layout and alignment or juxtaposition of pieces with precision and relative ease.
Because I like my house to be the ultimate challenge, we went with the onyx. There are moments where the risk is high and this pairing was one of them. You know, it’s like when you see someone on the street and they will have on something like plaid upon plaid and a stripe in the plaid and you're like, whoa. There's a moment where it can work, but it can also fail deeply. Just like how you cut pieces of stone; if it's done wrong or if the finish is wrong, it's just a mess.
But in this case I was also pairing the stone with the extremely refined workmanship of brilliant Eliot. He’s a master at delivering a beautiful Roman finish, taking it from pitted to honed to sueded to this soft antique texture. And he knows how to get the best out of a block, to extract the best veining and still leave you with the lovely quieter slabs. I tend to use slabs with greater veining on horizontal surfaces and the quiet ones vertically.
And then there is Umberto in my office who speaks Italian. To find special stones, we went on a fabulous trip to Italy with the principals of Liederbach & Graham Architects, who introduced us to an artisan who works in cubic blocks. The liberating thing about him is he simply doesn't have an issue, whatsoever, with how a block is cut. He can take a giant piece of stone and slice it and carve it up like he’s whipping up breakfast. He just does it. And that is how I ended up with a giant sink with ridiculous details in my house in the city.
There's a certain kind of Breccia marble that I have always loved. You see it in great houses and palaces and monuments. It has a very noble kind of figuration, more of a blob-like patterning and less typical veining. I’ve used it a lot in its green and red colorations which are the most known. But for this house, I wanted an aspect of a palace from Milan from the thirties, and I was after a Breccia that was warmer, even though yellow is my least favorite color. With paint you’re working primarily with color plus variations in finish; with stone, you're working with color, texture, nature, veining, patterning, so many variables.
Even partially finished, the main bathroom is a masterpiece of strong, natural materials (stone, plaster, bronze) coming together in an expression of utter elegance. A Birsley pendant from our most recent collection with Steven hangs overhead.
URBAN SMOKEBELL BRONZE TRANSLUCENTFINISHMIRROR ON CLEAR GLASS INTERIORS BY ROBERT RIONDA INTERIORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRIS TAMBURELLO
165THE CURRENT, VOL. 4 | STONE
MARLBOROUGH POLISHED BRASS FINISH WITH ANTIQUE MIRROR ON CLEAR GLASS ACCENT INTERIORS BY FERN SANTINI, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOUGLAS FRIEDMAN
KELVINGROVE ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM GLASGOW, SCOTLAND TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2022 3:31PM
