cast m STONE

The once-celebrated art of fossil stone furniture is rediscovered in Cebu

- AUDREY CARPIO.

In the 1980s, a design trend took over the living rooms of many homes in Europe and the United States—furniture, usually coffee tables with rounded bases or geometric postmodern edges in what is sometimes called travertine or tessellated stone. Its textured surfaces, in neutrals or sometimes pinkish colors, add a bold, yet organic element to a space. It’s a look that has found a new market as ’80s décor seems to be making a comeback.

One of the major proponents of tessellated stone furniture was Maitland Smith, an American furniture company that opened a manufacturing base in Cebu in the early ’80s, reproducing neoclassical designs using a unique stone tile inlay technique. But they were far from the only ones. From the island of Mactan, fossilized limestone was extracted and used to make these coveted pieces; Filipinos would know these rocks as Mactan stone.

Interior Designer Steffanie Ball discovered fossil stone furniture several years ago when she was looking to redecorate her house in Melbourne, Australia. She began scouring vintage shops when nothing that was currently on the market appealed to her. En Gold began as an Instagram account, selling secondhand pieces. “I was searching the entire Australia for fossil stone, I couldn’t get enough of it,” she says. “Although there were a lot of misconceptions about [fossil stone furniture] because I kept getting this impression that they were originally from Italy or France.”