Building in Stone Today

In recent years, structural stone in buildings has experienced a renaissance. This book offers a critical look at what the choice of stone is doing to contemporary architecture, in terms of both practice and form. Building in Stone Today takes observations of professionals at work – architects, engineers, quarriers, builders but also clients and their advisors – as its point of departure. The themes it addresses are stone’s perceived novelty as a modern building material; the politics of its provenance; the logic of its supply; the expertise it calls upon; the labour involved in its extraction and assembly; its haptic qualities; and finally, its capacity to last. Assembling voices and commentaries from Spain, Switzerland and England, the book adopts a storytelling format. Drawing on several case studies, it places everyday situations in working with stone at its centre. Illustrated with analogue photographs by the author.

• Highlighting case studies from Switzerland, Spain, and England
• Structural stone connects contemporary design with the depth of the natural Landscape and vernacular tradition
• The attractive volume explores the rich and complex practice of building with stone in Europe