The white marble of Lasa, a small South Tyrolean town in the Venosta valley, located halfway between Merano and Bormio and a few kilometers from the Austrian border, lands in the United States. And not just anywhere, but at Ground Zero, in the heart of Manhattan, in New York, where once stood the Twin Towers symbol of the West, whose attack, just over 10 years ago, shocked the entire planet.
It will indeed be there Lasa Marmo, historically managed by the Sonzogno family and since 1998 incorporated by the Austrians of Lechner Marmor spa, to build the Ground Zero subway station with its precious white marble.
The company from the province of Bolzano was in fact awarded the mega-contract of 20 million dollars: by 2015 a total of 20 cubic meters of marble will be supplied for the new underground station, which will rise right where for years the void of the rubble remained due to the terrible air attack of 11 September 2001. To meet the commitment undertaken, the company currently led by Georg Lechner does not exclude new hires.
The white marble, or Venosta marble, boasts a long and prestigious tradition: presented for the first time at the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873, the product acquired great fame with this brand. At the end of the XNUMXth century, Lasa marble was the favorite of many architects and sculptors.
Even today it mainly characterizes the neoclassical architecture in large European cities such as Vienna, Munich and Berlin. Among the most famous works made of Lasa marble we want to mention the General Moltke monument in Berlin, the monumental Pallas Athena fountain in front of the Parliament building in Vienna, the Queen Victoria monument in front of Buckingham Palace in London, the Heinrich Heine monument in New York.
Don't forget the over 90 crosses in Lasa marble for the graves of US soldiers who fell in World War II, commissioned by the Americans in the best and most valuable marble in the world, in their military cemeteries spread over four continents.
For this reason, probably, the Americans will be pleased that the 2974 victims of that attack are also protected by South Tyrolean marbleright where they died.
