Marble from Spain and Italy are world-renowned for it’s creamy, snow white texture and flawless quality. Michelangelo sculpted most of his statues from marble extracted in Carrara, Italy. This stone has also been used in the construction of Siena’s cathedral, St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and Marble Arch in London. Most of us know marble mainly as a final product in the chain of consumption – in hotel lobbies, altars, washbasins and tiles.

At the Northern tip of Italians Tuscany, there are over a hundred marble mines. Thousands of people work in the marble sector and extract over a million tonnes of marble each year. The landscape of this area is a product of human activity in natural environments. Centuries of quarrying have created a distinctive landscape. From distance, the pit mines appear to be covered in snow, even in summer. Marble from Italy and Spain are now being used in colossal building projects in mosques, palaces, hotels, malls in metropoles around the world like London, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai or Beijing.