22.10.2024

Stone+tec 2024 on course for growth

Building design

With over 250 exhibitors, Stone+tec is on course for growth. Credits: Stone+tec

From June 19 to 22, 2024, the time has come again: the biennial Stone+tec natural stone trade fair will take place in Nuremberg. The trade fair is on course for growth: with 250 different exhibitors, it is particularly large this year. Tickets for Stone+tec 2024 are already available online.

Stone+tec is the largest trade fair for natural stone in the German-speaking world. Every year, it attracts visitors from all over Europe who are experts in the field. For four days, the focus is on topics such as materials, gravestones and the latest technology. A new addition is the “Design with tiles” theme area.

The trade fair is on course for growth: over 250 different exhibitors are expected this year. The previous event’s space allocation has already been reached. In the natural stone sector, 40 companies have already registered for Stone+tec 2024, including Bamberger Natursteinwerk, Franken Schotter, Magna Naturstein, Nikolaus Bagnara, Roll Natursteine, African Stone Selection and Medmar. One of the largest product areas at Stone+tec 2024 is the “Equipment for professionals” area, which brings together tools and machinery.

The Stone+tec trade fair sees itself as an international competence center for natural stone and stone technology. The program includes thematic focuses such as materials, materials, gravestones and “Design with tiles”. There is also a comprehensive overview of the latest technology in machinery, equipment and tools, many of which can be seen live at the trade fair. This area, called “Equipment for professionals”, is an indispensable highlight of Stone+tec for stonemasons.

AFAG is organizing the Stone+tec trade fair for the second time this year. The trade fair is aimed at all professional stone processors from sectors such as construction, cemeteries, monuments and design. Property developers, planners and architects are also part of the target group. The accompanying congress offers the opportunity for further professional training in all aspects of working with natural stone.

A new feature is the addition of Tile+tec. This trade fair for tiles will accompany Stone+tec 2024 for the first time. It will feature exhibitions and offers relating to design with tiles. The open stage in the Nuremberg exhibition halls will host specialist presentations on all aspects of tiles and natural stone. On two days of the fair, the trade magazine “F+P Fliesen und Platten” will also be holding a tile seminar for all visitors. This will focus on sustainability, barrier-free construction, the digitalization of the trade and the processing of large-format tiles.

Stone+tec 2024 will take place from 19 to 22 June 2024 at the Exhibition Center Nuremberg and will begin at 9:30 a.m. each day. From June 19 to 21, the accompanying congress will also take place, which serves to provide further training; congress tickets are also available online. The complete congress program can be viewed online and is particularly exciting for architects who work a lot with stone or want to learn more about natural stone.

On Wednesday, June 19, the focus will be on “Solid building constructions made of natural stone for a sustainable future”. Thursday will also be about solid building structures, but also about corrosion problems. The Federal Association of German Stonemasons will discuss these using examples such as the Church of St. Sebald in Nuremberg.

And on Friday, the trade fair will focus on how generations Y and Z see the future of the cemetery, with futurologist Matthias Horx and psychologist Michael Lehofer both on site at Stone+tec 2024 to develop a picture of the future.

Although the general situation in the construction industry in Germany is tense, many stone processing companies have plenty to do. They are looking for solutions to increase productivity in the workshop and on the construction site. Franziska Petri, Managing Director of

machine and tool supplier König in Karlsruhe, characterizes the current situation as challenging: “Investments are being made more cautiously and carefully. But our industry is so diverse in what it does that there will always be areas of growth.”

Matthias Baumann, Managing Director of machine manufacturer Burkhardt-Löffler from Bayreuth and Langenaltheim, also looks to the future with confidence. Blanket requests for new machines are on the decline, with industry and tradespeople instead making specific enquiries for specific requirements: “Users have very precise ideas about the equipment and functions they need for their production. This is where our customized machine construction proves to be very advantageous,” explains Matthias Baumann.

While the skilled trades want more and more automation due to the shortage of skilled workers, even closer networking between processing stations is at the top of the agenda in the stone industry. The increasing proportion of in-house production among stonemasons means that machines are once again becoming more versatile and can process not only slabs but also thicker workpieces. This will become clear in the exhibition area at Stone+tec 2024.

AFAG Messen is a private organizer from Nuremberg that took over Stone+tec in 2022. Previously, NürnbergMesse was responsible for the event. Stone+tec has been held at the Nuremberg exhibition center since 1979 and AFAG has confirmed that this will continue to be the case. With the handover of the trade fair to the company, it has been ensured that the gravestone section in particular will remain. Stone+tec last took place in 2022.

Stone+tec 2024 is now back and is looking forward to a successful trade fair and conference in June. Register now!

25.12.2024

Exhibitions

For a differentiated approach to the portfolio

Building design

General

Architects usually try to create finished houses, i.e. coherent works of architectural art for eternity. But does this claim stand up to reality? Should that even be the claim? Inspired by references from architectural history, art and anthropology, the young Stuttgart-based studio Kaiser Shen has developed various theses and tested them on the basis of its own projects. From […]

21.11.2024

Tens of millions for the unloved barn

Building design

General

The Museum der Moderne will be expensive. Very expensive. But what is scandalous is not that the budget was approved. But how it was approved. Here is the opinion of architecture critic Falk Jaeger.

Herzog & de Meuron’s Museum der Moderne has been criticized from all sides for years: it is far too expensive, the design is not appealing and the visual axis between the National Gallery and the Philharmonie is being obstructed. Now the budget committee of the German Bundestag has approved the cost plan for the project. How can it be that politicians are ignoring all the facts and public objections and approving the exorbitant cost plan for a new museum, while the other buildings of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation have long been in need of renovation?

Visualizations: Herzog & de Meuron

Rarely has a public building project in Germany provoked so much headwind as the Museum der Moderne. A shitstorm, you could almost say, if the contributions to the discussion were not of a serious nature. “The most expensive crusty bread in the world”, was the headline in the FAZ, referring to a metaphor used by jury chairman Arno Lederer. “This barn is a scandal” was the headline of another FAZ article, a scathing all-round attack that scandalized the location, architecture, size, environmental aspects and costs in equal measure.

Some points of criticism even overshoot the mark. The castigation of the sacrilegious proposal to block the line of sight from Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie to Scharoun’s Philharmonie (nicely illustrated by Stefan Braunfels in another polemic) is an all too superficial, silly stop-the-thief argument. Of course, a new building in this location would interrupt the view, but Scharoun had already planned it that way in terms of urban development, and Mies had to assume this in his planning.

Why would the view be so indispensable? If you want to see the Philharmonie, you can just step outside the door. In the beginning, when the Tiergarten was still free of trees due to the war, you could even see the Brandenburg Gate from the Neue Nationalgalerie, so what the heck.

The Tagesspiegel described the situation as “eyes closed and through”, and was right: the budget committee of the German Bundestag approved another hefty gulp from the taxpayers’ purse for the Museum der Moderne, thereby imposing a voluntary commitment for future increases in building costs from 364.2 million to a forecast 450 million euros. It certainly won’t stay at that, it’s more likely to be 600 million. But then the project will be under construction and there will be no turning back.

Dependence on private donors

The real scandal is how the Minister of State for Culture, Monika Grütters (CDU), has pushed through her personal “Grand Projet” against the most diverse reservations in the backrooms of politics. The political caste is making up its own mind about the project. Facts, pragmatic considerations and public opinion play no role. Perhaps the highly controversial architecture of the Museum der Moderne (“barn”, “ALDI discount store” etc.) would not have been a sufficient reason for a rejection, after all it was the result of a competition with a prominent jury. However, the urban planning problems, the reduction in the floor plan with the consequence of the expensive, difficult-to-calculate lowering into the extremely problematic Berlin building ground, should have given the housekeepers food for thought.

It is also annoying to see the submissive dependence on some private donors who had threatened to move their collections elsewhere. This is due to the fact that the foundation can hardly organize its own major projects, internationally attractive exhibitions, and is dependent on partners who are willing to pay.

Too many building sites

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is constantly being “gifted” new, magnificent museums by the federal government, which then have to be used and maintained. However, there are already decades of renovation backlogs at the existing houses. In addition, there is inadequate funding for qualified specialist staff and a pitiful acquisition budget of 1.6 million for all museums. None of this fits together.

The Foundation should finally be consolidating. Instead, the Humboldt Forum in the palace replica is to be brought back on track in 2020, the general renovations of the Pergamon Museum, the New National Gallery and Scharoun’s State Library are devouring huge sums of money and so on…

It’s no wonder that Berlin looks longingly at the popular major exhibition events in Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York. We want to play in that league too, we want to have something like that here again.