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Crivéstudio

DARK SKÁPTŌ, nature has a heart of gold.

The elegance of gold and the technological power of Intermac come together to craft a table that is a work of art: a vibrant new take on nature.

Customer: Criveller
Actual Work City: Treviso
Country: Italy
Product: Primus Series,

Inspiration is always waiting where you least expect it: so say the creatives who flee monotony and so teach the visionaries whose insatiable minds investigate nature and biology, always finding something unprecedented and exciting. So it is such a rare but timeless process – the fossilisation of trees – triggered an ambitious design project that echoes the workings of nature and seeks out their true essence. Time, clay and sand, elements that have powerfully shaped life over the ages, become modular concentric rings with a gold leaf overlay protected by a transparent resin covering. Dark Skaptō is more than just an imposing table with overlapping gold veins: it is a veritable work of art, to the extent that art is beauty. The project was conceived by Paolo Criveller, founder of CrivéStudio, an architecture and design studio near Treviso that specialises in works of internal design, which subvert and take to extremes the principles of architecture even as it preserves a special awareness of landscapes, history and urban planning. These are the marks of distinction that the team led by Paolo implements wisely and skilfully as it faces projects challenging the limits of art and technique integrating the important lessons gleaned from their advanced investigation of aesthetics. Dark Skaptō is a table made with gold leaf, stone and transparent resin. In a fitting role for an item that represents togetherness, at Marmomac 2019 it reunited Paolo Criveller, Giuseppe Gennaro (head of design at Crivéstudio), Eleonora Menegazzo from the company Mario Berta Battiloro gold leaf supplier, Matteo Generelli, the stonemason who created the work and Raphaël Prati, Biesse Marketing & Communications Director. 

A meeting point and source of common ground, Dark Skaptō is the emblem of perpetual genesis, a hypnotic circle that gives life to everything. The table was designed by reshaping the concept of the tree trunk and offering a new interpretation of the classic concentric structure of tree rings: a design knowingly crafted by nature to mark the passage of time. Criveller offers his insight on the process: “Our celebration of time and the decision to select a tree trunk to represent life went hand in hand: after all, it is time that drives the process of fossilisation and preserves the tree. For this project, we started by observing nature first and later worked on ways to industrialise the piece, to make it less expensive without sacrificing its uniqueness. We took a work of art and made it modular and reproducible.” Nature and technology, two inseparable words, set the groundwork for a cyclical process that spans across materials, as Prati explains: “For us, for Biesse and Intermac, the table represents a grand synthesis: Intermac technology was produced by taking Biesse's technology principles for processing wood, copying them and adapting them to the properties of stone. Now we are celebrating wood by processing stone, thanks to an object that is both unique and reproducible.”

Case Histories Crivéstudio: Photo 1
Dark Skaptō, the star of the show, is the product of an encounter between technological power and raw materials – a gold leaf overlay and stone processed by an Intermac machining center – the triumph of ideas coming to life. The project itself started out as a creative idea by Criveller and “became tangible thanks to Giuseppe Gennaro, the heart of the studio,” Paolo explains. “Thanks to technology produced by Intermac and implemented by Generelli, we succeeded in a seemingly impossible task, a challenge that prompted us to react and search for a solution. I would never found the right way without the help of my skilled co-workers, without Matteo Generelli's experience machining granite, Eleonora Menegazzo's careful selection of the right kind of gold leaf, and Intermac's patronage. I'm using the term patron for Intermac rather deliberately: expressions like “sponsor” simply won't suffice. Intermac allowed us to create a work of art that depends on the knowledge and skill of the artisan, abilities that must never be lost.” “Technology should never stand in opposition to art or the artisan, it should be seen for what it is, a tool that helps achieve the right level of compromise without jeopardising quality,” Prati continues. “Technology is the first thing I offer a customer, we often leverage innovation and experimentation, allowing creativity to guide us and cooperating with designers to achieve winning combinations, which is what we have here.” Gold plays a crucial role in the project, conveying elegance and fascination. “This is the first time I've used gold for a table,” Eleonora Menegazzo admits. “I like to experiment with different applications on diverse shapes. To me it's as natural as breathing.” It was easy to breathe in Italian genius as it permeated the atmosphere at the Italian Stone Theatre, an experimental stand at Marmomac, which in 2019 featured Dark Skaptō as one of the most intriguing works of art on display. Ever since 2015 creations and experiments with stone have represented the sector, tracing an eccentric and visionary journey through culture, architecture and design, acting as a flywheel for business and exemplifying Italian excellence.
“I would never have found the solution, the perfect balance, without the help of my skilled co-workers, without Matteo Generelli's experience machining granite, Eleonora Menegazzo's careful selection of the right kind of gold leaf, and Intermac's patronage.”
Paolo Criveller Architect and founder of CrivéStudio
Paolo Criveller
Case Histories Crivéstudio: Photo 2
Case Histories Crivéstudio: Photo 3
Case Histories Crivéstudio: Photo 4
Case Histories Crivéstudio: Photo 5
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The Italian Stone Theatre
Generelli SA
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