Stone-Ideas.com 
Our photo gallery from the fair.
It is well known that there are three types of truth: the real truth, the falsehood (also often referred to as a lie) and the half-truth, where not everything is wrong, but not everything is right either.
The renowned Italian company Luce5 presented its new HYLEtech + Nex-S technology at the Salone del Mobile furniture fair (08 to 13 April 2025) with a half-truth marketing concept. This is aluminium, which is only one centimeter thick and has an astonishing strength and rigidity, and in which light strips can be perfectly integrated into the material without the need for electrical cables. The brightness, which can be controlled, appears to come from the material itself, which opens up interesting possibilities for furniture design and interior architecture.
The marketing for this innovation, however, came with an annoying twist of fiction and truth, aimed at highlighting aluminum as an environmentally friendly material: The product video shown at the trade fair and the press information featured an absurd comparison with wood: From a transport perspective, the lightweight metal was said to be far superior to the natural material in terms of CO2 emissions…
We are pointing out this curious form of consumer information because we are a magazine focused on natural stone and fear that this nonsense will soon be circulated regarding marble and granite, etc.
About the trade fair. It was held for the 63rd time and this year had two Special sections: Euroluce and Workplace 3.0/S.Project, which alternate annually with kitchen and bathroom. This makes it difficult to compare the statistics from year to year, partly because exhibition stands for lighting technology require less exhibition space than those for cooking and hygiene.
As always, a highlight was the Salone Satellite, where young designers from all over the world presented their ideas. This, in turn, attracted many young visitors.
This year, there were 2,109 exhibitors, with 38% coming from abroad. They came from a total of 37 countries. Almost three-quarters (73%) were from the EU. The rankings were (after Italy) Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, France, Romania, Turkey, the Netherlands, and Thailand.
The number of visitors totalled 302,548, with 68% coming from abroad.
In its press release, the trade fair management spoke of a “hugely uncertain global context“ in which the world’s largest show in the furniture industry took place this time.
However, all we heard from exhibitors was that they would have to wait and see over the next few months to find out how the American president’s tariffs would affect the economy, and what ideas he would produce at the next opportunity.
As in previous years, natural stone was on display in abundance, often in exotic varieties with bold colours and intense textures. We rarely encountered white or black marble as a classic luxury material. But that does not mean anything, as companies nowadays supply all types upon customer request.
One thing is certain: natural stone is valued as an aesthetic accent for living spaces, and also as an expression of wealth and luxury.
One innovation caught our special attention: Some companies exhibited glass tables with veins printed on their tops (from below) like those found in natural stone. The technology originates from the ceramics industry. However, it was always clear with the glass furniture that they were not trying to imitate the original natural stone. This is often different with ceramics, although it should be noted that ceramic companies have been inventing their own “geological“ creations for several years now. See many examples below.
And: For the first time, we saw a translucent ceramic with just a few millimeters thickness.
In a photo gallery, we will soon present examples of special uses of stone in the furniture industry.
Salone del Mobile 2026, April 21 – 26
Photos: Companies / Peter Becker
