Lapis Lazuli from Stone Eagle: a gemstone for architectural uses

The intense and exclusive blue color of Lapis Lazuli has always been a symbol for purity, health, elegance, luck and nobility. It is for this reason that this splendid semi-precious stone has been used by man for more than 6000 years to highlight its creations.

The Sumerians and Babylonians gave splendor to their best jewels, by using Lapis Lazuli mined in Afghanistan. The Greeks also attributed to the stone healing. The Egyptian Pharaohs used Lapis Lazuli in their thrones and funeral masks and Cleopatra used its dust as eye-make up. During the Renaissance period, lapis lazuli powder has also been used as a fade resistant blue pigment by such legendary painters as Leonardo DaVinci, Fra Angelico and Albrecht Dürer. In the Americas, the Incas, Molles, Diaguitas and other pre-Columbian cultures have, for ever 2000 years, used Lapis Lazuli to ornament different artifacts, by extracting the stone from the same deposit located at 3600 meters above-sea-level in the Andes Mountains.

Now it is time to bring some of this ancient and revered stone into modern architecture and design. Re-discover the allure of Lapis Lazuli and appreciate why pharaohs, kings and queens, priests and traders prized this beautiful blue stone.