Marble restoration in CityLife

For much of the twentieth century this site was home to the pavilions of the Fiera di Milano, the city’s historic exhibition grounds. Once the trade fair moved out of town, the whole area was redesigned from scratch: tall office towers, residential complexes by internationally known architects, a large pedestrian park and a shopping piazza. Almost everything you see today has been built in roughly the last fifteen years.

CityLife’s homes share a few recurring features: generous floor plans, large terraces and loggias, continuous glazing and plenty of natural stone inside. Marble appears as large-format slabs on seamless floors, as full-height cladding in bathrooms and as kitchen worktops and islands, often in prized stones with bold veining. Alongside Calacatta and Statuario we find greys and beiges, travertine and the occasional dark or coloured marble chosen for a single statement piece.

This brings particular technical challenges. Seamless floors reveal any difference in sheen from one area to the next, so a partial polish has to blend perfectly with the rest. Island tops are often single pieces with shaped edges and reduced thickness, so a chipped corner calls for a colour-matched resin rebuild finished by hand. Strong, low light through the glazing shows up every water mark. And most homes are furnished and lived in, so the work has to be clean, as quiet as possible and organised room by room.

Access needs planning too. The residential complexes generally have a concierge, underground car parks and house rules setting the hours and routes contractors must use. We arrange the loading and unloading of our machines with building management, protect lifts and corridors, and organise the work so that we pass through the communal areas as little as possible. Residents in the rest of the building should barely notice we are there.