CULTURE OF QUALITY: Currency Building. A Telegraph picture

From Roman to Renaissance to Baroque and Neo-Classic, Italian architecture has always embodied a blend of structural stability, utility and aesthetics — a thread carried forward to the Mediterranean nation’s modern mortar matrix.

Now Calcutta, in the grip of a construction frenzy, can draw from the expertise of an Italian quality monitor that promises to lead Indian organisations in the building materials and construction industry towards “a worldwide-recognised excellence”.

ICMQ, an Italian institute for certification and quality marking for construction products and services, spelt out its scope to promote the “culture of quality” and to check the conformity to laws, requirements and enhance paper behaviour between players in the market at a roadshow on Monday.

“Our aim is to repeat the Italian experience of finding the right balance of aesthetics with technology and transfer those qualities to the production systems,” Cesare Saccani, ICMQ India CEO, said at the conclave, Italian Trends towards Building Excellence, organised by the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

The non-profit institute carries out inspection, evaluation or certification, directly or indirectly, through the company ICMQ SpA.

Through import of best practices and by offering tailored checklists for each product and activity, ICMQ hopes to lower maintenance costs, reduce construction time and minimise environmental impact of infrastructure projects.

Integrating durability and quality with shrinking the construction timeline is the key to success here, felt Lorenzo Orsenigo, managing director, ICMQ SpA.

The Indian arm of the marking body is also a “reference point” for Italian construction companies willing to do business in India and vice-versa.

Experts at the seminar stressed the need to respect the past while using new technology and materials.

“It’s important to be sensitive to the local context and in Calcutta for instance, it’s much more sensible to use ductile fibres to bind than reinforced concrete and maybe more limestone and bricks to handle the humidity,” Enrico Dassori, president of ICMQ, told Metro.

Dassori, a professor of architecture at the University of Genova, is hopeful of catalysing a student and faculty-exchange programme with any of the institutes in Calcutta offering architecture as a degree course. “We have unparalleled experience in restoration and adaptive reuse of old buildings we can share with Calcutta architects,” he said.

City-based architect and urban designer Partha Ranjan Das, who made a presentation on contemporary architecture trends in Bengal, felt these inputs could be critical. “We require their guidance on how to use new materials and technology without disturbing the integral character of the building,” Das pointed out.