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A beautiful black marble slab with streaks of gold and a green quartz surface that sparkles like crystals in the daylight—learn about these and more stunning surfaces for your home and their myriad uses.
As we hear Peter Tjioe enthuse about the beauty of natural stone, his almost encyclopedic knowledge about the matter certainly makes an impression.
The president of MM Galleri Group walks us through the subterranean-like gallery of the Singapore showroom, as he discusses the natural stone types that the firm works with—he’s easily able to talk at length about the origins of each slab and its unique features, be it the glamorous sparkle of the Palisandro marble from Italy or the distinctive emerald shade of the Verde lapponia quartzite from Norway.
(Related: Here’s The Secret To Making Marble Bendable)
“We started as a small marble vendor and we have since expanded the company (MM Galleri) in the last 26 years through innovation,” shares Tjioe. “We kept up with the trends, innovating along the way. Even when few producers were using marble as a tabletop material, we did that as early as 1994 and exported it to the US. We have done a lot of things with stone—we have constructed buildings, churches, statues, as well as outdoor and indoor uses of the material.”
Established in 1992, the company currently has offices in Jakarta and Surabaya in Indonesia; its Singapore showroom opened in January this year. Recent innovations by the stone specialist include its marble-bending technique, which slices the natural stone into slim, pliable layers without breaking the material. These layers of stone can then be applied as a flexible, veneer-like cladding to create custom-made furniture, lighting, and even onto interior walls or pillars.
