Terrazzo

Terrazzo is a composite flooring and cladding material made by embedding chips of marble, granite, quartz or glass in a cementitious or resinous binder and then grinding and polishing the cured surface to a smooth, decoratively speckled finish. Developed by Venetian mosaic workers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as a way to use marble offcuts economically, it became a standard flooring material for institutional, civic and commercial interiors through the twentieth century for its durability, low maintenance and the essentially unlimited range of color and pattern its aggregate and binder choices allow. A resin-bound version, thin-set terrazzo, was introduced in the 1970s, installed at a thinner six to ten millimeters and offering a wider color range and higher strength than the traditional cementitious mix. The material best known landmark use is the Hollywood Walk of Fame, whose terrazzo stars have marked celebrities names since 1958.