Pietredelvco.it is a biennal project developed by Assograniti with the co-operation of Confartigianato and thanks to the contribution from the European Union, the Ministry of Economy, The Piedmont Region, The Verbano Cusio Ossola Province and the advice of the University of Milan Bicocca, Department of Geological Sciences and Geotechnology (the project has been presented to be financed as provided in the rule 1260/99 DOCUP 2000-2006 measure 1.1b).

Thanks to this project we have been present at Marmomacc International Exhibition in Verona, editions 2003 and 2004, with a stand named pietredelvco.it.

The name "pietredelvco.it" is the basis for the whole communication plan aimed at promoting indistinctly the stone sector and the territory of our Province.

Territory and stone material is a binomial that has been made real both inside the stand in Verona and the paper catalogues, the DVD, and the web site realized by Assograniti VCO.
Visiting these pages as a frame for the evocative images referring to the territory of our Province and particularly referring to our mountains, it is possible to find geological and mineralogical information about the territory and the 19 materials that Verbano Cusio Ossola is in a position to market.

It is now a consolidated fact that the 81 extractive sites of our Province and the more than 250 processing companies are the button-hole of piedmont stone tradition.
The qualitative peculiarities of our materials and the skills acquired by the operators of the field with an age-old-custom are able to make every product or production realized in this territory unique.
This project is aimed at making visible this important economic and cultural reality of the blue province also to the internet users.

THE PROJECT
Le mani e il Sasso

We realized another important project named "Le mani e il sasso" ("The hands and the stone"). Gal Soprip Parma, Gal Azione Ossola from Domodossola and Gal Portodemouros from Portodemouros (Galicia- Spain), took part in the project which has been realized thanks to the community program I.C Leader + 2000-2006.The main purposes of this initiative were to discover again and to turn the stone into account in the life of the rural communities of this territory, with the aim of increase the diffusion of cultivated stones for artistic and building use.

The project has been realized through a sequence of four stages:

First stage.
The international competition of sculpture La Pietra e la Musa Agreste

(Stone and its Pastoral Muse) presented during the event Domo Bruna 2007 has been created to sponsor - using artistic expressions - the two main resources of the Verbano Cusio Ossola territory: the local stone and the Bruna Alpine breed of cow.
The competition mobilized a noticeable mediatic interest, particularly on the web, and has been translated into different European languages, into modern Hebrew, and Cyrillic by the editors of important art portals.
The competition yielded an excellent result with forty participants. Sculptors and sculptresses coming from different Italian regions and different international countries (Spain, Germany, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Israel, Argentina, Ecuador, South Korea, Popular republic of China) took part in this competition, most of them having an important and international artistic path of great prestige. All the artists interpreted the subject of the competition "Bruna Alpina" (Bruna Alpine) characterizing all its peculiarities and shades. The jury, presided by Enzo Sciavolino, evaluated the models choosing three artists as provided in the rule of the competition:

First chosen artist Mattia Bosco- Italy with Il mio giogo è soave e il carico leggero (My yoke is sweet and the burden is light)

Second chosen artist Tanya Preminger -Israel with Temple of mother nature

Third chosen artist Peter Harnicar -Slovak Republic with Stone and its Pastoral Muse: bond of the centuries

The first chosen artist was the only one author of Musa Agreste (Pastoral Muse); he created at Testori F& C company from Cannobio (partner of Assograniti) a real scale sculpture. The local stone used to create the work was the serizzo. The work was shown to the public during the event Domo Bruna 2008. The importance and the active interest generated by the competition is highlighted by the place in which the sculpture has been placed: piazza Matteotti, the square of the Domodossola International Railway Station.
For further information the web site www.musagreste.it is available info@musagreste.it

Second stage.
Development and implementation of the web site www.pietredelcvo.it

Third stage.
Documentation Centre

Fourth stage.
Competition Models chosen

The first three models chosen at the International Competition of Sculpture La pietra e la Musa Agreste (Stone and its Pastoral Muse) left Domodossola to be shown at the biennal exhibition Alpi365Expo in Turin, where AssopiemonteLeader + had a stand, during October 2007. Then all the participants' models were shown in the Municipal building of Domodossola, sala Mellerio.
From December 2007 to April 2008 all the artists' models were shown in the glass show-case of the Confartigianato Novara Verbano Cusio Ossola at the Domodossola International Railway Station. During the event DomoBruna 2008, in May, the models were shown at the Mellerio Rosmini college. A photograph exhibition has shown the models at the seat of the Valle Ossola Mountain Community during the event Le vie del marmo ( the Streets of Marble).

The President of Assograniti
Mariateresa Moro

"the stone belongs to the but when it is carved it receives the sky and becomes architecture"
(C. Norberg-Shulz)

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