There's a question I'm often asked at design and architecture fairs: «Are you a sculptor or an engineer?» I always take a second before answering - not out of hesitation, but because the question itself reveals something important about the state of the sector. It assumes that these two worlds are separate. That creativity belongs to the craftsman, and precision to the machine. That the robot is the enemy of the hand.

This tension — craftsmanship versus technology — lies at the heart of every discussion about contemporary stone sculpture in Switzerland. And today, it deserves to be dismantled, piece by piece, just as one dismantles scaffolding that is no longer needed.

The Swiss stone workshop: a three-generation story

The first generation is that of the journeyman stonemason. A master and his stone, a chisel and a hammer, decades of training. These workshops embody a tradition of handing down skills that goes back to the medieval cathedrals. Their value is indisputable. Their scale, limited.

The second generation appeared with the first digital milling machines in the 1990s and 2000s. Progressive workshops integrated CNC machines to speed up certain repetitive tasks. The technology came assist the craftsman, without replacing him. The sculptor remained the centre of gravity of the project.

Today, something different is happening. And that's what IKONERA stands for: a third generation, A world in which artificial intelligence and robotics are no longer assistants - they are the architects of the possible.

What the robot changes - and what it doesn't replace

Let's start by clearing up a persistent misunderstanding: a 7-axis CNC robot does not does not sculpt strictly speaking. It runs. The difference is fundamental.

The industrial precision robot we use at IKONERA can reproduce with an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre a shape that no one on earth could cut by hand within that timeframe. It can attack the material along seven simultaneous axes, creating impossible undercuts and algorithmic textures with a regularity that is beyond the reach of manual tools. He works at night. He never tires.

But what the robot doesn't do - and never will - is deciding what is beautiful. Choosing the tension between a rough surface and a polished edge. Understand the space in which the piece will live. To sense what the client has not said, but which can be seen in his sketches. This intelligence remains entirely human.

At IKONERA, each layer does what it does best. The AI models and explores. The robot executes with a rigour that the hand cannot achieve. The craftsman's hand finishes where the material requires something that algorithms don't yet know how to name.

From block to finished piece: what really happens in the workshop

Let’s get down to specifics. When a project comes to IKONERA — be it a bust, a Corinthian capital or a monumental piece — it goes through a process in which every stage serves a specific purpose. None of them is merely decorative.

The result of this production line: parts of a complexity once reserved for museum-scale projects, delivered within competitive lead times — and at a fraction of the cost of a fully manual production process.

Why generative AI is changing the very nature of projects

Here's what fundamentally distinguishes IKONERA from workshops that «also use a robot»: we don't use technology to speed up a pre-conceived idea. We use it to generate forms that would not have existed without it.

In practical terms: a client — a five-star hotel, a property developer, a collector — comes to us with a set of requirements. A space. A material. An atmosphere. A set of values. We translate these parameters into 3D models, parametric explorations, and forms that even the client hadn’t imagined they would want until they saw them. AI doesn’t decorate — it co-designs.

This is where the «craft vs technology» debate becomes a false dichotomy. It's not one or the other. It's a new category - what I call the'algorithmic workshop - in which artificial intelligence extends human creative capacities rather than constraining them.

The ecological question that nobody is asking

Compared with cast concrete - the ubiquitous substitute in prestige architecture - a sculpture in natural stone represents a reduction of the order of 70 % of CO₂ emissions throughout its entire life cycle. It does not deteriorate. It does not need repainting. It ages gracefully. A bench made of Jura limestone installed today will still be there in two centuries’ time.

Concrete, for its part, accounts for approximately 8 % of global carbon dioxide emissions. Quarrying and cutting stone requires relatively little energy — no firing at 1,450 °C, no clinker, no rusting reinforcement. And when it comes to reinforced structural stone, the figures are truly spectacular: up to 96 fewer tonnes of carbon and savings of 75 % compared with an equivalent steel-concrete structure.

Switzerland today: where do we really stand?

Switzerland is home to some of the most respected stone-cutting workshops in Europe. Training to become a stonemason is among the most rigorous in the world, with standards of excellence jealously guarded by professional structures that are firmly rooted in the fabric of French-speaking Switzerland.

But the reality of the market is this: demand for complex, bespoke pieces with fast delivery is skyrocketing — driven by the luxury hotel sector, ultra-premium property developers, galleries and collectors. And traditional craftsmanship cannot meet this demand on such a scale. This is not a criticism. It is a structural reality.

IKONERA was not born in opposition to the world of craftsmanship. It was born of the conviction that the two worlds, working together, create something that neither could produce alone: pieces of a formal complexity that was previously impossible, made to competitive deadlines, with the tactile finesse that only the human hand can provide.

What this means for you in practical terms

A new category only makes sense if it opens doors that were previously closed. Here is what the algorithmic workshop makes possible, depending on who you are:

Defining the new category: the algorithmic workshop

This is where IKONERA fits in. Not between the artisan and the industrial - but somewhere else, on a third line that didn't exist five years ago and that will define the built aesthetics of the next decade.

The next time someone asks me if I'm a sculptor or an engineer, my answer will be simple: «Neither. I run an algorithmic workshop.»

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