BRAND PROFILE: Simone Pedretti
Pedretti - the art of furnishing in unique stone
As proud Australian partner to Simone Pedretti we are delighted to share the debut of LAPIS, designed by Como based architectural studio Superluna and presented throughout October in Verona, Italy. Lapis (stone in Italian) transforms the fascinating and rare petrified wood in a collection of furniture most unique and fine.
Three values: Italianness, ethic, tradition
Simone Pedretti, named after its founder, was established in 2020 and is based in Valpolicella, Italy.
The brands exists with a cultural plan to value and protect the wealth of a region, Trentino (Simone's land of origin), by extending artisanal craft through the generations. A consciousness to respect the environment, producing less but of the utmost quality, is entrenched in their philosophy.
Since the early 1900s, the Pedretti family has been a protagonist in stone processing in the Trentino region with the exclusive extraction of Tonalite rock from their quarry located in Val Rendena. Cutting-edge works have been created pairing Pedretti’s expertise with international designers collaborations to the caliber of Ettore Sottsass in 2003 and Max Lamb in 2016 showcasing different stone carving techniques through their works.
Simone, using his know how from the family business, launched Simone Pedretti with the mission to continue the excellence of Italian design. To reach the goal of Pedretti the most rare and unique stones in the world are used and its first furniture collection Lapis is born.
AD Italia includes Pedretti as one of the 30 new brands who project the craftsmanship of the future and one of 100 game-changers in the world.
“We combine the creativity of some of the best architects and designers with skillful Italian craftsmanship using rare and sought-after materials. The constant search for rare and unknown stones allows us to create products with unique raw materials that no other company has ever used. This characteristic makes us unique, positioning us in an exclusive niche with the aim of the pursuit of excellence.”
Simone Pedretti
Petrified Wood
Simone Pedretti is the first company to use petrified wood for furnishings, achieving in Lapis the ultimate sophistication - where simplicity, purity of line and an emphasis on materials converge to express a timeless elegance.
Petrified wood is an extremely rare stone formed via a mineralisation process throughout millions of years.
“It is fascinating how during this long time, trees buried in volcanic ashes are replaced by stones after minerals (mostly silica in the form of opal, chalcedony or quartz) deposit and permeate the wood year after year,” says Simone.
Today, after careful research on a worldwide scale, Pedretti extracts the petrified logs and import them to Italy, selecting only the most precious trunks with the most exclusive qualities. Tradition and innovation are combined through the work of skilled artisans who transform these stones to a level of excellence not believed possible.
Each log, approximately 30 million years old. has unique characteristics, depending on the minerals absorbed over time which makes it impossible to establish the material’s shades before processing.
It is nature that chooses the colours in Lapis collections.
Owing to these unique characteristics Pedretti afford two main variations in petrified wood: brown and black. Each of the two variations is nuanced with striking feature in tones of white, grey and rust. To compliment the precious stone three complimentary fine metal finishes are offered: house gold, micaceo iron and oxidised brass.
Lapis Collection
Born from the encounter between manual skills and design, the young designer Luca Sartori from the studio Superluna has transformed the fascinating and precious petrified wood in a collection of furnishings most unique and fine.
Founded in Como in June 2017 by Marco Bonfatti Paini, Andrea Romano and Luca Sartori, SUPERLUNA is a creative space with a contemporary vision on architecture and design. SUPERLUNA’s interests, design, and research activities move on different scales between Italy, Brazil, and Switzerland.
LAPIS is composed of: three tables ‘Ciocat’, bench ‘Triga’ and bookshelf ‘Sfoia’, that tell of the Trentino territory with a contemporary key. The collection is a reinterpretation of traditional elements of the mountainous region and its local landmarks. The bench for example borrows from a traditional mountain seat found (shown below) on the trails in the Alps.
The name of each piece comes in fact from the Trentino dialect. Ciocat translating to tree stump, Triga to rest, and Sfoia to browse.
