The quarry worker, artisan creator of s’hostal

The quarry worker is the first one to modify nature here in the marés quarries. His techniques when cutting the stone create an expression of art, the key to understanding the character of the emerging landscape.

The artisan stone cutter

The artisan stone cutter (trencador d’escoda), master of the traditional art of stone cutting, is the original creator of the quarries. With his hand held hammer, he was at the service of the stone.

His job was to test the quality of the marés stone, seeking out the best seams for cutting. This has resulted in the quarries’ maze-like areas, irregular shapes and sculptural contours: an image of the earth’s internal structure. Rock steps carved out as each layer of rock was extracted downwards were used to bring up the blocks of stone out of the quarry.
The stone cutters worked at an angle, creating slanting walls by chiselling them. The walls are a testimony of the stone cutter’s painstaking and measured work.

The way machines work

From the 1960s stone cutting machines were used in the quarries. The machine moved on rails and used two circular saws to cut downwards into the stone, cutting in straight lines and at right angles, thus creating these vast and deep spaces.

The stone cutter was at the service of the machine, which did not select the stone by its quality. Absolutely everything was cut, resulting in monumental square places, where the vertical incisions of the saws can be seen at regular intervals on the steep walls as well as sporadic circular engravings.
This is a world of rocky whiteness that dominates and shelters in silence.