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At the beginning of civilization, the primitives used the stone for shelter and hunt. Later, discovering with surprise the qualities and diversity of this material, people have come to understand their paradoxical essence: hardness and malleability. Since then, for thousands of years, working with natural stone has achieved incredible refinement for our ancestors. We have on one hand the art of housing construction, road, temples and bridges, and then, the art itself.

A unique, extremely elegant hotel built in a cave on a 6,000 sq. m. area. A few minutes from the Buffalo National River Valley, in the Ozark Mountains (Arkansas), in a natural setting of great diversity, combining rivers running deep with steep slopes, is Beckham Creek Cave Lodge. As you will see, impressive is not only the top quality comfort, but also the incredible relaxing atmosphere that includes all the rooms decorated in the underground of stone. Interesting is also the history of the place, as you will see below.

The spirit of the Greek sculptor Phidias is alive and after almost 2,500 years, inspires one of our contemporaries whose art astonishes and provokes. In this article we continue the series of contemporary artists who are able to extract from the stone unbelievable spirits and shades. We are talking about Alasdair Thomson, a sculptor born in Scotland, famous worldwide especially for the way he depicts the delicacy of fabrics in marble works.

Natural stone statues have been made for over 30,000 years. Statues of small pieces of natural stone are made only since the beginning of this millennium. It's not a special technique, you see in the photos. It is the passion of a man for natural stone, in this case for slate. Stephen Kettle is a British sculptor who found in slate not only the strength of a tough natural material but also the significance of these textures. Attractive textures found in all types of slate: decorative slate or SKIN flexible slate. So, this is the amazing art of slate sculptures!

Mosaics have been a way of marking the difference in style since antiquity. The special status of the higher social classes was also marked by the presence of mosaics in their homes. The art of natural stone mosaics was appreciated not only for the color variation, refreshing for that particular space, but also for the difficulty of putting that into practice. Nowadays, this difficulty has disappeared, but the mosaic attraction has remained unchanged.

InterContinental Shimao Wonderland is the only hotel in the world built inside an abandoned quarry. The bottom of the quarry will be filled with water, so that 2 from the 19 floors of this impressive building will be practically under water. And this extraordinary idea of a 5 star “skyscraper”, built deep inside the Earth, would not have been possible without architects being able to rely on resistance and durability of natural stone.

The winter holidays are coming, the house will be full of guests, so you have to get ready. A snack, a cake, a bottle of wine ... For the wine bottles we have exactly the holder you need. Having an exotic appearance, our bottle holder is made of Sandstone Mandras, a very resistant natural sandstone type. The value of such a bottle holder is 25.56 EUR (+VAT), but you could get it for free if you follow the few simple steps of the PIATRAONLINE contest.