Stefano Facchini

HOMO FABER

I am Stefano Facchini the owner of Arte 2000 which is a handcrafted workshop operating in the province of Treviso since 1988.

The passion for the marble world has entered in my blood thanks to the witness of my paternal grandfather. He was born in Portole a small town in the Istrian region and he was the owner of a quarry of Roman origin in the area of Santo Stefano near to Quieto River. Here a compact limestone was extracted and used in the past for the constructions and the sculptures of Venice.

In 1943, due to the war, my family, as many other, to preserve life, decided to leave her own land and the real estate to move to Italy, in the nearby Trieste. At the time my father was only 12 years old. After the terrible experience, my grandfather managed to start other business activities unrelated to the marble sector. It seemed that the family story which was connected to the marble world was over.

I was born in Trieste, where I have lived until the age of 20 when my family decided to move to Colle Umberto in the Venetian countryside where I still live.

Coming from a family of businessmen, when I finished the studies I decided to get into business world. After having acquired a commercial experience in different sectors, in 1988, mindful of my origins, I have started this activity of artistic marble manufacturing. Originally we have realized, with manual tools, simple low reliefs and furnishings objects using Italian classical marbles coming from the Venetian and the Tuscan quarries.

Early in 1990s I started to introduce myself all over the Italian territory, participating in craftsmanship exhibitions in different locations and on the foreign market (Europe and America) and also attending the international marble fairs of Verona and Nuremberg. The knowledge of the German language, that I fortunately had learned from my paternal grandmother when I was a child, has immediately given me the possibility to start successful relationships with the clients who speak it, setting up the phase of export and installation, first in Germany and Austria then in the rest of the world. In a short time important and expensive investments have been necessary for the purchase of the machine tools not only to work small pieces of marble but also for entire slabs of different thicknesses and blocks.

I am a lover of the knowledge by nature and I have learned by experience travelling in Italy and abroad to meet other artisanal and industrial institutions, comparing me with other stonemasons and operators in the sector and studying hundred of ancient and modern books related to the marble and now belonging to my private collection. All this has allowed me to learn different techniques and methods of manufacturing.

The beauty and the exclusivity of the marble have overwhelmed me and I started to search new stone materials in particular prestigious, ancient and rare marbles of Italian and foreign origin in order to offer the best personalization of the custom-made work.

Between 2005 and 2010 due to the Chinese competition and to the global economic crisis, I had to make a choice which consisted in increasing the standard work, mainly investing in the purchase of automated machines, or in dedicating myself to the custom-made processes to satisfy the market niche which is interested in the artistic marble works. I decided to follow the personalization way and to give value to the working ability of the internal labour which, over the years, has already specialized itself in creating every type of product. In Arte 2000 the line between the artisan stonemason and the artist-sculpture is very short.

Due to my strong tendency and interest for the classic world and the vintage products, I have tried to know, to experience and to guide my working team towards the specialization in the copy of ancient works and in the aging finish that is a surface treatment which allows to obtain an aged and consumed by time effect, very similar to the normal use that objects of the past have been subjected to.

In the following years the personal experience has allowed me to improve the knowledge and the technique placing them at the service of the activity. Today, in Arte 2000, I deal with consultation, planning of custom-made products, research of special materials, on-site assistance and after-sale. In the workshop I assist the work of my team to turn anonymous pieces of marble into unique and exclusive works. No work is like the other because we do not realize in series products. I personally supervise the work of the qualified layers who collaborate with me since many years to guarantee the best custom-made product quality.

Over time I have developed this strong passion for the stone which still supports and excites me. Today I consider very stimulating to find out new solutions, to plan, to be able to actualize and to see with your own eyes something that you think impossible to realize and that for long time has been placed in the customer imagination. The creativity and the fantasy help me to understand the nature, the colors, the veins and the soul of the stones to obtain the best result.

If you want something special and unique, trust in my experience: I will involve and excite you since the planning phase.

The artisan, with his own hands and his creative mind, is a genuine author of living well the space.

For an artist to prove himself in new projects also means curiosity and research and try to realize them in the right way refines the ability and fortifies the inspiration.