Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1545129
59 Above: Lucelle candleholder in marble, onyx, and travertine. Top: Unara bench in travertine, calcite, marble, and onyx. Laura Young and Rigatoni The bride wore a sculptural gown of travertine and Venetian marble, her layered skirt chiseled in pleats inspired by Japanese plissé, with something blue — a calcite necklace, cool as a sapphire — resting at her neck. Her face glowed with the translucency of ice onyx. She looked radiant. She is also, technically, a floor lamp. Welcome to The Wedding, the most arresting installation at this year's Salone del Mobile Milano — and arguably the most romantic thing to happen to a pile of stone since Michelangelo. For the debut at Alcova — the celebrated platform for independent designers that commandeered abandoned Milan spaces for a week in April — Mexico City-based Sten Studio transformed a vacant chapel in the Baggio district into the stage for a sculptural ceremony. At its center, two monumental floor lamps — the Bride and Groom — were positioned before the altar as though the officiant had just cleared his throat. She is called Aurella, and her form unspools in layers, much like her personality — joyful, expressive, fearless. Above the structured pleating of her skirt, the composition grows bolder, rising toward a sculptural headdress that catches light and transforms her into something genuinely luminous. He is Vireon. His formal jacket — rendered in Jasper black marble with clean-carved lines and controlled volumes — reads like a tailored tuxedo translated into stone. A pyrite specimen worn as a brooch is, according to the studio, a family relic from his grandfather. His top hat is an architecture unto itself: stacked geometries in Santo Tomás gray, Mazahua, and black marble, each component individually carved and assembled. His face illuminates in white onyx. He is quietly, impossibly handsome. Around them, the rest of the Sten collection assemble as wedding guests — The Bride, Aurella, is a floor lamp carved in travertine, Venetian marble, calcite, and onyx. .