There is a floor in the Doge's Palace in Venice that has been walked on for five centuries. It is made of terrazzo. The craftsmen who laid it are long forgotten, but the material they worked with (chips of marble, quartz and granite set into a binder and ground smooth) has outlasted almost every design trend that followed. That is not an accident.
Terrazzo is one of the oldest composite materials in continuous use. Its story is not one of reinvention but of persistence: a material so fundamentally well-made that it keeps returning to the fore, decade after decade, long after its supposed replacements have dated.
Venice, the 15th Century, and the Craftsmen Who Worked with Offcuts
The origins of terrazzo are practical rather than decorative. Mosaic workers in 15th-century Venice, known as terrazzieri, would collect the marble offcuts left over from their more prestigious commissions and repurpose them. Mixed with clay and seawater and laid across the floors of their own modest terraces (terrazzo means terrace in Italian, from the Latin terra, earth), this humble composite proved to be extraordinarily durable.
It was also, unexpectedly, beautiful. The randomness of the chips created surfaces that were impossible to replicate exactly, each floor unique by virtue of its materials. Wealthy Venetians took notice. By the 16th century, terrazzo had moved from the workers' terraces into the palaces overlooking the Grand Canal.
The craft spread. Venetian terrazzieri travelled across Europe carrying their technique with them, and by the 18th century terrazzo floors could be found in the great houses of France, Austria and beyond. The material adapted to each context: different regional stones, different binders, different grinding techniques. But the essential logic remained the same: aggregate, matrix, polish.
The Industrial Age and the Rise of Portland Cement
Terrazzo's great technological leap came in the 19th century with the widespread availability of Portland cement. Previously, craftsmen had used lime-based binders that required weeks of curing and considerable skill to apply. Cement changed the calculus entirely: faster, more consistent, easier to work at scale.
This opened terrazzo to a new era of public architecture. Train stations, schools, hospitals, banks: institutions that needed floors capable of absorbing millions of footsteps without complaint found in terrazzo an obvious answer. The material became, in the most literal sense, infrastructural.
Epoxy Terrazzo: A 20th-Century Innovation
The 1970s brought a significant technical development: epoxy-based binders as an alternative to cement. Epoxy terrazzo offered stronger adhesion, thinner pours (as little as 6mm compared to cement's 15–20mm), and a broader colour range. It also enabled crisper detailing and tighter pattern registration, opening up graphic possibilities that cement systems struggled to achieve.
For furniture applications, however, cement-based terrazzo remains the standard. Its greater mass and density give it the weight and thermal presence that defines the material experience — the coolness to the touch, the solidity on a frame. Epoxy is thinner, lighter, and better suited to large-format floor installations where structural load is a consideration.
Mid-Century: Terrazzo at Its Peak
The period between 1940 and 1970 represents terrazzo's high-water mark. Modernist architects embraced it enthusiastically. Its geometric possibilities, its range of colour, its seamless expanses suited the clean lines and open plans they were designing. Airports were perhaps its most visible showcase: Miami International, Los Angeles International, Rome's Fiumicino. Vast terrazzo floors that still exist today, still serviceable, still striking.
In Scandinavia and Italy, designers pushed the material into more refined territory, specifying terrazzo for counters, walls and furniture as well as floors. Gio Ponti used it. Carlo Scarpa used it. For a generation of architects working across Europe and beyond, it was simply the material of serious design.
The Fall: Carpet, Vinyl, and the Cost of Labour
By the 1970s, terrazzo was in retreat. The reasons were economic as much as aesthetic. Skilled terrazzieri were expensive and increasingly rare. Carpet was cheap, quick to install, and warm underfoot in an era of air-conditioned offices and centrally heated homes. Vinyl and linoleum offered similar economies. Terrazzo, which requires grinding, polishing and sealing by hand, could not compete on cost.
It disappeared from new construction almost entirely. Where it survived, it did so unremarked: in the lobbies of ageing hotels, in the corridors of post-war schools, in the vestibules of civic buildings that nobody had got around to renovating. For two decades, it was a background material, invisible through familiarity.
The Revival: Why Terrazzo is Back
The return of terrazzo over the past fifteen years has been driven by a convergence of forces that would have been difficult to predict. The first is a reaction against the homogeneity of industrial surfaces: the smooth, uniform laminates and engineered stones that dominated interiors through the 1990s and 2000s. Terrazzo, with its inherent variation, offers something those surfaces cannot: the assurance that no two pieces are identical.
The second is a growing appetite, particularly among architects and interior designers, for materials with legible histories. Terrazzo carries five centuries of craft knowledge. It is made from natural stone. When properly specified, it is extraordinarily long-lived. In an industry increasingly conscious of material provenance and lifecycle, these qualities matter.
The third is aesthetic. The speckled, multi-tonal surface of terrazzo photographs exceptionally well, which has not been irrelevant in an era shaped by visual culture. But beyond imagery, terrazzo has a physical presence: a weight, a coolness, a depth that synthetic materials consistently fail to replicate.
From Floors to Surfaces: Terrazzo in Furniture
The shift from terrazzo as an architectural finish to terrazzo as a furniture material is relatively recent, and it reflects a broader change in how designers think about objects. A terrazzo coffee table is not simply a table with a stone top. It is a piece that brings the logic of the floor into the living room: the weight, the variation, the sense that it has been handcrafted rather than manufactured.
For furniture applications, the material demands particular attention to structure. Terrazzo is heavy. The frame, typically steel, must be engineered to carry that weight without visual bulk, a balance that requires precision manufacturing rather than off-the-shelf componentry. The connection between stone and metal, between the organic randomness of aggregate and the exacting geometry of powder-coated steel, is where terrazzo furniture design either succeeds or fails.
When it succeeds, the result is an object with an unusual quality: it looks as though it belongs, immediately, in almost any serious interior. Terrazzo furniture does not announce itself. It settles.
Beyond coffee tables, the logic extends naturally to terrazzo side tables and low tables: smaller surfaces that carry the same material presence into the spaces between seating, beside beds, or outdoors on a terrace.
Specifying Terrazzo Furniture: What Designers Need to Know
For interior designers and architects working made-to-order terrazzo furniture into a project, a few considerations are worth bearing in mind.
Material composition
Not all terrazzo is equivalent. The quality of the aggregate (the size, variety and origin of the stone chips) determines both the aesthetic and the durability of the finished piece. High-quality terrazzo uses natural marble and granite rather than synthetic fillers. The matrix (the binding material) should be dense and non-porous to resist staining and moisture ingress.
Frame construction
The steel frame should be precision-fabricated, not bent from standard profiles. Wall thickness matters: thinner frames flex under load; a minimum of 2.5mm is advisable for furniture applications. Powder-coating, rather than paint, provides the durability appropriate for both indoor and outdoor use, an important consideration for hospitality and residential projects in Switzerland and across Europe.
Removability
A terrazzo top that can be separated from its frame simplifies both installation and cleaning, a practical consideration that is easy to overlook at the specification stage but that clients will appreciate over the lifetime of the piece.
Lead time
Made-to-order terrazzo furniture is not a stock item. Handcrafted pieces require time; factor four to six weeks into project schedules accordingly and communicate this clearly to clients at the outset.
Sessions: Handcrafted Terrazzo Furniture, Designed in Zurich
Sessions was founded on a straightforward conviction: that terrazzo furniture, made properly and handcrafted to a standard that mass production cannot match, should be available to designers and architects without compromise. Every piece — coffee tables, side tables, low tables — is designed in Zurich and made to order, with handcrafted terrazzo tops and steel frames handcrafted in Switzerland to a minimum wall thickness of 2.5mm.
The result is furniture built to the standards of a serious interior, suitable for indoor and outdoor use, and designed to last. Every piece is made to order — no two tops are identical, and no piece is made until it has a space to go into.
For specification enquiries, the Sessions trade programme offers direct access to the full range, lead time information and material samples.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is terrazzo made of?
Terrazzo is a composite material made from chips of marble, quartz, granite or glass set into a cementitious or epoxy binder. The mixture is poured, cured and then ground and polished to a smooth finish. The size and variety of the aggregate chips determine the final appearance of each piece.
How long does terrazzo furniture last?
When properly specified and maintained, terrazzo furniture is extraordinarily durable. The material has been used in floors and surfaces for over 500 years; pieces made to a high standard should outlast most other furniture materials by decades. The key variables are the quality of the aggregate, the density of the binder and the quality of the frame construction.
Is terrazzo furniture suitable for outdoor use?
Yes, provided the frame is powder-coated steel rather than painted, and the terrazzo mix is dense and non-porous. Terrazzo handles temperature variation and moisture well, making it a strong choice for terraces, outdoor dining areas and hospitality environments. Sessions terrazzo furniture is specified for both indoor and outdoor use.
How is terrazzo different from marble?
Marble is a single natural stone, quarried in slabs; terrazzo is a composite made from chips of multiple stones bound together. Marble offers a consistent, veined surface; terrazzo offers a speckled, multi-tonal surface that varies across every piece. Terrazzo is generally more resistant to cracking than marble in furniture applications, where the material is subject to movement and impact.
Where is Sessions terrazzo furniture made?
Every Sessions piece is designed in Zurich and made to order. The terrazzo tops are handcrafted, the steel frames are handcrafted in Switzerland, and lead times are typically four to six weeks from order confirmation.
Sessions is a Zurich-based design studio making handcrafted terrazzo furniture to order. The collection includes coffee tables, side tables and low tables, with handcrafted terrazzo tops and steel frames handcrafted in Switzerland, available in multiple finishes and frame colours.
