Cities of Stone

A recent exhibition in Venice,Italy by Prof.Cladius D'Amato made a plea for revival of stone in Architecture in the cities of Europe and build cities of stone!

Almost all over the world, naturally occuring materials like stone, clay,timber, hay,bamboo were used for building activity. These were then easily and locally available, cheap and plentiful, environment friendly and climatically appropriate. But their use was labour intensive and had limitations due to the inherent quality of the materials. Rapid urbanization, need for low cost mass housing and greater awareness for human environment degradation due to indiscriminate use of natural resources led to a search for new manmade building materials.

In India, arid states like Rajasthan used stone extensively for walls, roofs, floors, beams, door and window frames. The internationally wellknown city of Jaisalmer is a good example. Clay was used for walls, roof insulation in other states in aluvial delta regions. By and large, depletion of the natural resource like stone and the possible environmental degradation likely to occur due to its extensive quarrying led to a search and use of alternative manmade materials like cement concrete.

Reinventing use of stone is just a gimmic. Romanticism in Architecture is for the Academics and those who can afford it, financially, physically, and glamorize it as a fashion like in dress design! For the poor; low cost, quick results and cheap availability will remain a deciding factor in the selection of building materials. In a rapidly globalizing economy, labour and transportation costs, speed and ease of construction, flexibilitity in provision of utilities and spiralling urban land costs- requiring greater carpet area per unit of built area- will be the determinants of building material use. Cities of stone can be only for the rich. The middle class may have to do with “immitation” manmade stone for their cities!

Prakash M Apte