Quarry Diary: When ECAL Students Meet Cristallina Marble

Text by Natascia Finocchiaro Maurino, Founder, CEO and Artistic Director of Cristallina Design

Every time I see them arrive, the same thing surprises me: they come from different cities, they speak different languages, but when they enter the Lavizzara Valley, the silence puts them all on the same level. It's as if the mountain were watching them.

Over the past few days, I accompanied the students of the ECAL Master in Luxury & Craftsmanship program to the Cristallina quarry. For many of them, it was their first time in front of a block of real, living marble, uncut and unpolished. I watched them touch the stone with their fingertips, like touching a fine fabric to understand its texture. And it was there that I realized how powerful this material is: even before being an object, it moves .

RSI was with us and followed this experience step by step. They captured the curious glances, the technical questions, the sound of the machines cutting the rock, the students standing still listening to the craftsmen as if listening to an ancient tale. Here's the link to the report, for those who want to see the journey with their own eyes.

Because the quarry isn't a tourist destination. It's where the marble breathes. Where you understand that nothing in the design is truly random.

Many of these young people come from the world of industrial design or electronics. They're accustomed to metals, plastics, and rapid production. And when they discover that marble can't be controlled, but interpreted, something changes in their way of looking at it. A vein can be an opportunity or a limitation. A line can become a shape or a mistake. Each block is an original, without copies.

From the quarry, we moved to our workshop in Biasca. It's there that ideas begin to take shape: the sound of the cutters, the precision of the cuts, the care of the hands that sand. Some students approached the machinery like an orchestra: there's technology, but without the intuition of the craftsman, there is no harmony.

This collaboration with ECAL, which we have been cultivating for years, is not just an academic project. It is a promise: to demonstrate that Swiss marble can speak the language of contemporary design, sustainability, and luxury that is understated but endures.

Every year, this encounter creates objects that end up in our collections, showrooms, and exhibitions. But above all, something more important is born: young designers who learn that matter has a soul. That marble is not a rigid material, but a creative companion.

Natascia Finocchiaro Maurino Fondatrice, CEO e Direttrice Artistica di Cristallina Design

As I watched them take notes, photograph, and draw, I thought that each of them will take away a piece of the quarry—not physically, but in their minds. Over the next few months, in a classroom in Lausanne, those ideas will become projects, and some will become prototypes. And then real objects, crafted here, among these mountains.

And every time they are born, it's as if a piece of Ticino arrives in the world.

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