We have very long and rich history of stone cutting and stonework.
We have plenty of stone in our environment. It is sediment stone and that type of stone can be found in other countries in Mediterranean region. People used that stone for building houses, streets and I can say that everything that you can see here that is older than 50 - 60 years is made of stone! Back then, it was a need because people didn't have anything else but this stone. And many of these people worked in local quarries, which was an engine of economy of that time. Stone was the cheapest and the firmest material that people could get.
After World War II, communists didn't support anything what is connected to tradition.
In next 45 years, all that was built were cold project buildings. People lost their interest for stone and it's beauty. After the fall of communists regime, stone became popular again. But now it is not so cheap! It became the most expensive building material. So people turned to newer ways of building and some tried to revive the old ways.
But our cities and villages are full of stone buildings and that houses and streets are here for centuries, some of them are old almost 1000 years.
VILLAGE
When I visit my grandma's village, I always see many new and modern houses.
Old stone houses are now barns for domestic animals or tools for agriculture.
The most of the stone that was used in the villages was from quarries around the small town of Benkovac.
Today that stone is very expensive and they export it in other countries.
This kind of stone can be cut as tiles or as bricks, but many people in the past didn't want to cut it at all!
They just used pieces of stone of similar sizes to build the walls.
CITY
The old part of my city was built only and only of stone!
So many of those buildings are useful today, but in the time of communist regime, they tried to bring them down. Today they are valuable monuments of history and well protected by conservators.
People finally realized the real worth of these stone houses and streets!
If you want to renew this kind of house, you will need a lot of licences and after renovation the house will have to look in the same way as before.
The most of the stone that was used in the cities of Dalmatia comes from local islands and especially the white stone from the island of Brač.
The same stone is today the most expensive building material in Croatia.
Many centuries ago, people used to build very narrow streets.
Those streets were not so narrow because of lack of space, but because of easier defense from the land and from the sea. If the streets were wide, people would be easier targets to cannons.
The cities that were made of stone were easier to defend of invaders from Venetian Republic and Ottoman Empire.
That's how we resisted to our enemies trough all history and my little city of Šibenik remained free!
