Marble

The marble is a metamorphic rock derived from limestone, existing in a great diversity of colour, being able to present veins or marblings. These veins and colours are generally due to inclusions of metallic oxides. Certain types of marbles bear particular names, for example the cipolin or the morello cherry.

The word marble comes from the Arab word marmar where the marmoreal adjective of marble.

The feeling of cold that one has by touching marble, even being at the room temperature, is due to its strong thermal effusivity.

The use of the decorative marble as material was seen for the first times, in occident, in the interior construction of the churches. In North Africa, one knows that it was used from the middle of the second front century J.-C, for construction and decoration of a monumental sanctuary financed by the king numide Micipsa.

The marble is also massively used for the manufacture of the toothpaste.

Morocco abounds in marble layers. From the North to the South, various marble colors arise: Volubilis, Luxus, Agadir, Bejjâad, in the Saharan provinces, in Tiflet, Khénifra, Zayan, Taza, Al Hoceïma, Azilal, Taroudant, Smâala, Timahdit, Azrou or Azemmour.

Once extracted off the career, the marble arrives in the monumental mason in form of enormous blocks. It is handcraft worked when it acts to carve any work The operations of shaping are long because of the hardness of the material and paradoxically of its brittleness.

This material of architectural decoration is a required product whose trade intensified on a Mediterranean basin scale. Its rich range of natural colors gives him an exceptional advantage which makes it possible to create decorative effects by its luxurieuses and original compositions.

The alive surface of the natural coloured stone and its resistance to the moisture allows to use the marble for installations of interior spaces and outsides like bathrooms, staircases, grounds, frontages, kitchens etc

It lends itself well to the size and is very much used in construction, decoration or sculpture. It can be used like top as counters for the bathroom, but it is not recommended like surfaces counters for the kitchen. The marble is very porous and the contact with certain food substances causes its deterioration.

The grounds, esplanades, patios and alleys of gardens can be equipped either with plates with same material, or of two or several types of marbles, or of marble tiles intersected with zelliges. The purpose of this mixture of marble and zelliges is research not only decorative but such a technical; the joints of zelliges avoid to the marble the disadvantages of the dilation which can be important because of the wide variations of temperature that Marrakech or Fès meet. For the fountains, the basin is always cut in only one block of Carrara marble.

 

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