Piedra 2008: Other Attractions at Piedra’08

Piedra 2008: Coinciding with its trade exhibition, Piedra will also host the staging of different activities designed to offer an added-value dimension for trade visitors. The purpose of these measures is to promote the use of Spanish natural stone and awareness of its rich appeal, high quality and decorative applications within the field of building.

In this respect, Ifema and the Spanish Natural Stone Federation (FDP) will organise the Eleventh Piedra '08 Architecture Awards, a promotional tool that serves the industry and seeks to highlight the strong links that exist between the Piedra exhibition and the worlds of architecture and building. The Awards Jury will be made up of architects as prestigious as Antonio Lamela (Chairman), Rafael de la Hoz, Antonio Jiménez Torrecilla (winner of the Architecture Award 2006), Marisol Pedrosa, Enrique León and Sergio de Miguel. The Jury for this edition of the Awards will also feature the Head of Piedra, María Valcarce, and the President of the Spanish Natural Stone Federation (FDP), José Marín.
Another of the activities organised within the framework of Piedra '08 that aims to promote natural stone will consist of the staging of the Second International Congress on Stone in Architecture, an event organised by Ifema and the Spanish Natural Stone Federation (FDP), in collaboration with the Stone Association of the Madrid Region and the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM). This edition, which will take place on 9th May in the South Auditorium at Feria de Madrid, will feature a magisterial address by the architect, Rafael Moneo, who will endow the Congress with an international dimension due to the considerable prestige and renown that this master architect enjoys throughout the world. This meeting will provide a forum at which architecture professionals and companies from the industry can share experiences. In the same way as at its first edition, the Congress will boast the Honorary Presidency of H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.
The fair will also host the presentation of an exhibition on contemporary architecture in Spain entitled “The Natural Seduction of Stone", organised by the Spanish Foreign Trade Institute (ICEX). This exhibition, which will focus on the themes of architecture and stone, will bring together a selection of projects carried out in Spain by fifteen Spanish architects of international renown, all of which involved the use of natural stone as the predominant means of expressing a new and modern architectural approach. José Rafael Moneo Arquitecto, RCR Arquitectes and Madrilejos & Osinaga Arquitectos are just three of the important studios that will be represented at the exhibition.
This initiative, organised by ICEX, which provides a perfect example of harmonious combinations of "Art and Nature" and "Avant-Garde and Traditional Approaches", will be presented for the first time in Madrid, after having been inaugurated last October in Verona.
The staging of Piedra'08 will coincide with that of Veteco, the most important monographic fair on windows and structural glass in the world, which will also attract the attention of architects, surveyors, decorators, manufacturers, builders and property developers. This double trade fair event will enable visitors to discover the latest aesthetic trends and technical solutions within the building industry and the field of architecture.