Stone Frieze – Something Unusual

Szerelmey delivers all manner of different styles of stone cladding from ornate carving following historic precedent to simple and contemporary. Currently we are working on an impressive stone frieze for a London project in conjunction with LSI Stone Portugal. Undertaking carved stonework is not unusual for us, but what is unusual is the scale of this particular project. The frieze carved in Cabeca Veada limestone supplied and finished by LSI Stone, consists of a poem that was specially written for this project and takes account of the surrounding area.

It runs 160 meters around the perimeter of an entire building at second floor level and is comprised of 56 very large pieces of approximately 3388 x 1180 x 150mm stone restrained through the vertical joints between pieces. A number of samples were created first to establish the height, depth and type of lettering to ensure it could be easily read from ground level, which led to a height of approximately 18cm being established for the letters.

Considerable design work was required to take account of the spacing for the letters so none fell over a joint between the pieces of stone. LSI Stone CNC machine carved the letters in their factory in Portugal before painstakingly finishing each one by hand to achieve a perfect finish.