Limestone Cladding at Center of Arts | PIMAR - Italian Limestone Specialist

For 150 years, Pimar has epitomized Italian excellence in Lecce stone craftsmanship, extracting and transforming limestone from its 40-hectare quarries into versatile design solutions, earning prestigious certifications like UNI EN ISO 9001-2015 and ASSORESTAURO. Pimar's natural limestone cladding was used in Princetown University's Lewis Complex Center of Arts, located in New Jersey, USA.

The grand Lewis Arts Complex, designed by Steven Holl for Princeton University, was conceived to create a space dedicated to creative arts disciplines such as dance, music, and performance. The complex consists of three new buildings covering approximately 13,000 square meters: the Wallace Dance Building and Theater, a circular structure housing theater and dance studios; the Arts Tower, a central tower that accommodates spaces for visual and literary arts; and the New Music Building, a square-shaped structure dedicated to music.

In this project, Steven Holl experiments with diverse architectural forms and the juxtaposition of different materials, utilizing light as an integral structural component. Alongside glass, which maximizes the interaction between indoor and outdoor spaces, the architect chose a striking and captivating cladding material: Pimar natural stone. The prestige and luminosity of Pimar natural stone gave the Lewis Arts Complex a new radiance, thanks to the beige stone that perfectly harmonizes with other materials such as glass, concrete, and wood. Slabs, both straight and curved, measuring 90x150x7.5 cm, were used to cover more than 4,000 square meters, including special corner pieces and decorative elements featuring stone cavities.