Eternal Fragment
Curated by Pietro Franceschini e Arthur Vallin
Designers: Pietro Franceschini and Arthur Vallin
Companies: Corsanini, Marmo Canaloni
Eternal Fragment is the lens through which this collection was conceived: an imagined excavation of forms that have never truly belonged to a single historical period. At its core, it is also an ode to the Roman ruins, to the enduring shadow of the Colosseum, and to the millennia-old culture of stone that the Carrara region has given to the world.
These mountains were quarried to build empires. Their legacy is still visible everywhere.
The designers sought to establish a new language of the "archaeological ruin"—one that does not simply document the past, but projects it into the future. Fragments, voids and structural absences become deliberate design gestures rather than signs of decay. What remains when stone is removed becomes as meaningful as what is left standing.
The collection is a tribute to Carrara itself: to its marble, its mountains, and the living tradition of the artisans who have shaped them for centuries. Every piece has been created in close collaboration with craftspeople from the Carrara area, heirs to a deep material knowledge refined through generations of carving, proportion and patience.
Here, hand and machine coexist not in opposition but in continuity: ancient gestures reinterpreted through contemporary manufacturing technologies, offering a modern vision of what this remarkable stone has always been capable of becoming.
The result is a body of work that brings this heritage into the public eye—not as an act of preservation, but as one of reinvention. Each object is a relic of the future: rooted in the geological and cultural memory of a place, yet unmistakably of its own time.
The work
The Creators
Pietro Franceschini
Architect and Designer
Arthur Vallin
Designer
Biography
Born in Florence in 1988, Pietro Franceschini lives and works between Milan and New York.
An architect and designer, his practice lies at the intersection of material craftsmanship and digital culture. In 2020, he founded PF|Studio.
Through collectible furniture and objects, he explores the dialogue between reality, functionality and digital illusion. He defines his approach as "The Fictional Object", where every physical piece exists alongside a digital counterpart that extends its narrative. His work is rooted in hybridity, blending references to antiquity, industrial modernity, pop culture and speculative futures.
He has collaborated with Leeser Architecture (Brooklyn), Laisné Roussel (Paris) and Carlo Ratti Associati (New York).
His work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and institutions including Galerie Philia, Studio 27, The Invisible Collection, The Collectional, Objects With Narratives, 1818 Collective, Stahl + Band, Origine Au, Freeman, Elle Decoration and Simon de Pury.
Arthur Vallin's practice occupies a precise intersection: the point at which objects become propositions. Trained at Penninghen in Paris—one of Europe's most rigorous schools of visual arts and design—he holds a Master's degree in Art Direction and brings to his work a formal sensibility rooted in the traditions of French craftsmanship, combined with an unwavering commitment to material experimentation.
His collectible design practice is the result of extensive research into the relationship between form, space and process. Each piece emerges from a dialogue between designer and artisan—a methodology that values technical innovation as highly as aesthetic refinement. His work negotiates a series of tensions: weight and lightness, the archaic and the contemporary, precision and gesture. The result is limited-edition work executed without compromise.
Alongside his collectible design practice, Arthur has led transformative creative direction at the highest level of commercial design. As a founding partner of Harley & Company, he built and led a creative department responsible for award-winning campaigns, immersive spatial experiences and digital transformations for clients across fashion, culture and global technology. These disciplines continually inform one another, applying the rigour of design thinking with equal intensity to bronze casting and brand identity alike.
Arthur Vallin Studio is represented by international galleries and collaborates directly with architects, interior designers and private collectors across the United States, Europe and the Middle East. He lives and works in New York.
The companies involved
Carrara marble, known in Roman times as Luni marble, has been a highly prized resource for centuries. The first quarrying sites were established in the Colonnata valley, and the tradition of extraction continues to be passed down from generation to generation.
Marmo Canaloni is one such example. Founded in 1971 by Aldo Guadagni, the company continues a long-standing family tradition in the marble industry. It operates a quarry covering approximately 70,000 sqm, created through the consolidation of several historic nineteenth-century quarries.
Alongside the quarry, the company has its headquarters in Carrara, where the extracted blocks are processed and finished before being brought to market.
The company remains family-run. Aldo provides strong entrepreneurial leadership, supported by his sons Fulvio and Gabriele, who oversee the industrial facility and commercial operations; his second son Gianluca and son-in-law Alessandro Bugliani, who manage and work at the quarry; and his daughter Federica, who assists her father with administration alongside her cousin Pietro Piccinini.
The company’s operations are also supported by a team of 16 skilled workers.