Founded in 1922, the School of Mosaic stands committed to mosaic art educational mission, binding tradition and innovation, connecting the productive and cultural contests of this ancient and contemporary art.
In the vivid light of mosaic and terrace laboratories the sound of mosaic hammers on choppers and blocks, mastered by mosaicists of nowadays, keeps signing the time after centuries of mosaic craftsmanship.
Mosaicists craft passion has never changed in the course of history continuously nourished by the new themes and techniques of new generations of mosaicists, architects and designers. In the last century Sequals mosaicists, that are now considered the pioneers of modern mosaic, started creating a fruitful encounter with painters and architects and came to realise great artworks. They spread their own art all over the world: in Washington they decorated the Library of Congress, in Paris they participated to the architectural restoration project by Charles Garnier of the Opéra. It was terrace master Giandomenico Facchina, who decorated also the Church of Lourdes (France), who decorated the French theatre.
Forged in this particular background the educational and artistic reality of the School of Mosaic of Friuli came to realise important mosaic walls and carpets of international appeal, studying and working on Roman, Byzantine and modern techniques.
In the first postwar period, the most interesting mosaic project, realised by the School, was the wall and floor mosaic of 10,000 sqm mosaic at the Foro italico in Rome created on the bozzetti by Giulio Rosso, Angelo Canevari, Achille Capizzano and Gino Severini.
Feeding fruitful partnerships with clients, The Mosaic School of Friuli has always had a deep concern for its core objective perceiving mosaic art to be not only a technical form of art but most of all as a cultural phenomenon: study, research, experimentation, the use of the most innovative technologies have been important factors in self improvement and development
The school keeps coping with modern art formal research, innovation of styles and techniques by contemporary artists like Basaglia, Celiberti, Ciussi, Dorazio, Finzi, Licata, Pizzinato, Zigaina to name a few. Their art has offered to our students the opportunity to go through the edge of ordinary artistic universe and experiment the rendering of light and colour. Alumni study all the structural plots underneath a single bozzetto in order to interpret them with the tesserae and create new styles and artworks dimensions. The 2000 Summer exhibition of Mosaic works, held in Villa Manin, Passariano, hosted the mosaic masterpieces of this innovative stream that brought tesserae art in the realm of the most appreciated artworks.
Considering the teaching and cultural level, the mutually advantageous partnerships with architects have been very interesting and innovating: new, unseen solutions have been presented during the course for terrazzo techniques for urban and internal design decorations.
The connection between culture and project, between mosaic and architectural space has it utmost expression in one of the latest works of the school: a totem column, 10mt high, completely tiled reflected, as in a kaleidoscope, on structural columns mosaic strip decoration in Corte Europa in Spilimbergo. This decoration is a sort of celebration of the European Community and was included in a wider restoration and conversion project of a dismissed military headquarter urban structure.
Another example of the collaboration between architects and mosaicists, is the interesting mosaic horizontal wall decoration of a cemetery in Roveredo in Piano, PN, Italy. This project was designed and realized by our School, which is also laboratory that proposes comprehensive decoration project solutions, including creation, design and execution of the artwork. This operating way has made the success of the mural and flooring mosaic decoration in Tokyo in Japan (august 2002): the decoration of the wall niche was inspired by Santa Costanza mausoleum, Rome.
Our School keeps also an advantadgeous partnership with the University of Lubiana especially for urban restoration projects with mosaic artworks; also the mosaic inserts in high-quality furniture showrooms should be mentioned along with the great artistic projects with Siemens.
The school is now working on some patterns of the floor mosaic with Roman theme to be laid in Vesprem (Ungheria), the mosaic design project of the open space rooms of a villa in New York, of a 36mt panel titled 'Saetta Iridescente - Iridescent Lightning' designed by Giulio Candussio for the Temporary Subway of Ground Zero in New York.
The great exposition at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the most important museum of Canada, engaged the School that is still now working on works by artists like Basaglia, Celiberti, Finzi, Nespolo, Pizzinato, Spacal, Turchiaro and Candussio, and there is also a section of works inspired by futuristic art works. Among the masterpieces the Carpet Pazyryk, of 5th B.C. the oldest in the world, extraordinarily represented with the tesserae technique. During the exhibition a practical workshop on how a mosaic is created, designed and realized will be held. The presence at the Royal Ontario Museum awarded our school with an international recognition which involved the whole Italian Art and Culture.
The restoration of the mosaics of the Lourdes Sanctuary (France) is still going on at our school laboratories. After many studies, researches and photos of this particular location, the School realized the drawings for the reconstruction of the missing elements and their restoration. Researches on the materials to be used for this particular decoration have been developed and for what regards the technical aspect the mosaic has been laid using Giandomenico Facchina's original method: reverse technique on paper (indirect technique)