Stone

=What are stones?=

Guijarros

Stone is a material that comes from earth. It is very common, we all know it. When kids we used to play with them, they're hard and heavy, and have a wide range of forms, colors and textures. I think stone is one of the most original materials used in construction. The man someday took a stone and placed it somewhere, he was building. Then he put one stone over the last one and began making a wall. He practiced with every possible combination and realized that it was the beginning of something really bigger. Architecture was created.

=Stone= Muralla en Ávila, España

 Stone is a natural material found almost everywhere in the world. These stones come in their majority from fossilized magma. They are taken from earth and can be worked to make different structures. Stone, because of its weight, is at the same time structural support and load. It can be used directly without almost any treatment, and it was used in monumental buildings because of its durability and adaptability to be finely sculpted. 

One of the most important stoneworks is ashlar masonry. It is a kind of masonry which uses dressed stones to make walls and constructions. Stones are sculpted to be rectangular and have even faces, and then are jointed with mortar. Rubble is another type of stonework, which is used sometimes like a filling, that consists of crushed stones in mortar.

Nevertheless, it is not easy to work and build with stone. It is heavy, so quarrying and transporting it is expensive, is pretty difficult to cut and it doesn’t resist a lot of tension. Besides, structures made with stone must transmit every charge vertically to resist properly in most circumstances.

However, even though stone has been used from the very beginning of architecture, nowadays it is still considered as one of the most beautiful materials of construction, so we'll see it in our houses and buildings for a long time to come.

Termas en Vals, Suiza