Two visions coming together: a traditional one seen by the old Menorcan stone cutter and one seen by the young French sculptor and architect. This was the commencement of a project that transcends cultural differences and focuses on the safeguarding of marés limestone quarries. A 35-year-journey from the touching moment of a solitary first encounter with the abandoned quarries, hidden deep in the heart of the landscape of a Mediterranean island, to an undertaking shared among people from different countries and to the full restoration and rebirth of a site. An awakening of awareness of the richness of man’s work with stone and a project to highlight the importance of the quarries as an expression of European stone cutting heritage and the unexpectedly beautiful and valuable spaces created by such activity.

LÍTHICA. THE AWAKENING OF A QUARRY Thirty-five years ago, on a luminous spring day, I had the opportunity to travel to one of the Balearic Islands, to an island of stones and flowers, like Ireland, magical and pulsating in the heart of the Mediterranean. A place where you can walk along endless paths lined by dry stone walls, across green fields in flower in the Menorcan countryside, through clearings where menhirs and taulas stand tall and caves are glimpsed, enticing you to explore the earth’s interior; a world of freshness unfolding before the coming of the summer’s ravages. In the midst of all this enchantment, at the end of path in the middle of a wood, yet another surprise awaited me. I came upon an unexpected scene hidden among the vegetation: large open spaces gaped at my feet, as if carved into the landscape. They seemed to arise from another world, the remains of a forgotten civilization. They were weathered by the passing of time, overgrown with vegetation. They were unreal, wild, carved by human hands and then surrendered to nature. Betwixt nature and memory, these places were intimate, welcoming, romantic, and yet at the same time dizzyingly immense cubes. They were profoundly fascinating, generating a feeling of peace… Being a student of architecture and incipient sculptor, my heart was bewitched forever. Little did I know that the enchantment would stay with me and guide me throughout my life. Now let’s imagine a young student, a city girl from Paris, and Toni, nicknamed “el Pichón”, a Menorcan stone cutter who from an early age has worked as a farmhand, as a charcoal maker and in quarries. Every day of his life for him has meant hard work and sweat. He was the one who introduced the student girl to the world of the quarries. Two years later, as a result of my selecting this magical place as the thesis for my architecture diploma, we meet again alongside the noisy pit of a working quarry: two beings from completely different galaxies whose shyness metamorphoses into trust and involvement. They would meet every Sunday and interchange information and questions until one day Toni confessed his aspiration: ‘If only schools could come here and see this cathedral in reverse, and discover the genesis, the gestures that created this place…’ These words, this latent desire, found an echo in the young student. Little did she know that her utopian project, written for a distant university, would come to fruition ten years later, guided by these words. The student was assisted by her thesis supervisor, an etcher and ‘Land Art’ enthusiast, who supervised her project on sculptured landscape and other paths. At that time another menace threatened these landscapes: a new mining law was passed making the filling in of quarries compulsory. Fortunately, the Paris project contributed to the endorsement of the ethnological value of the quarries, which were then listed in the heritage catalogue of Ciutadella de Menorca in 1983 and therefore protected. This was the first step, the first stone towards the rebirth of the quarries. Ten years went by. The project lay forgotten in a drawer. Lorries full of landfill began slowly burying the quarries again. We stood by helplessly. Then in 1994 the operating quarry closed down. We seized the opportunity. To stop the process we created an association with a group of friends and rented the quarries from its owners. Thus Líthica was born. The forgotten project was taken out of its drawer and presented to the C.I.M. (the island council Consell Insular de Menorca), to the recently declared Menorca Biosphere Reserve and to the savings bank Sa Nostra, who all supported our project enthusiastically. The project from then on became the foundation on which Líthica was developed: a quarry conceived as a place carved in the landscape, a great labyrinth, a garden, a concert hall, a place for workshops, for school visits… Then in 1995 the C.I.M. subsidised the first campaign to remove rubbish from the ‘amphitheatre’ quarry, to open up paths and to build protection walls. This was the start of the healing process of this great ailing body that was the buried quarry. At the same time, Sa Nostra helped us bring to light techniques, artisans and landscapes through an exhibition and a book. That was the start of a long organic process, our project being conditioned by financial circumstances every step of the way. The start of the project was striking, with diggers and lorries cleaning out the main quarry. The following step was to concentrate on the Orchards Labyrinth, one of the lines of action developed by Líthica in the heart of the quarries, where we dug a well and started to lay out the garden, with the assistance of the Biosphere Reserve administered by the C.I.M We learned from the stone cutters of old who had converted the disused quarries where stone was cut manually into orchards and vegetable gardens, as they were like small gullies sheltered from the wind and retaining the humidity. Gradually Líthica is recovering these old abandoned areas, transforming them into a huge garden where flowerbeds are interspersed with wilderness. The medieval garden is a secret place, in a hidden quarry where beds of rose bushes, medicinal plants and aromatic plants are laid out around a fountain, representing the medieval perception of mankind and the cosmos. A botanical circuit of native plants has been devised, which meanders from quarry to quarry. Then came the 2008 recession, which almost tipped our project into extinction. We started to organise fund raising parties, we asked for contributions for planting trees, we recruited volunteers… and managed to survive from one day to the next with grants getting ever smaller and more difficult to obtain. We then realized our aims could be more modest. We would listen to the quarries, making the most of times when we could move forward, taking advantage of people turning up to offer their assistance: a local poet helped us edit a book; a gardener landscaped the garden interweaving it with wilderness; a dancer helped create a festival; a stone wall artisan created an educational area; many more people have contributed their time and creativity to help turn the quarries into the compelling place that is it is now. The name of the Orchards Labyrinth garden reveals how the project is rather like Ariadne’s thread, being in essence a labyrinth, in the way stone cutters would create landscapes by following the softer seams of rock in the old quarries. A walk along these pathways is like the start of a journey through rocks cut by human hands; a walk leading haphazardly between rocks and vegetation growing everywhere, where people walk along the paths perceiving and appreciating their surroundings. The completion of the project will be on Líthica’s 20th anniversary, when a great labyrinth will be built using three thousand stones, each one sponsored (and financed) by visitors. The labyrinth will be a monumentally large square in the middle of the modern quarries. In the old quarries there is a small Cretan labyrinth created from aromatic plants, a complete contrast as it intimate and secluded. Both labyrinths bring to mind the ancient myth of the stone labyrinth where dwelled the Minotaur. Almost like a giant beehive, the quarries gather together people who work here as well as volunteers, visitors, artists, schools, gatherings, a summer festival held over the last seven years, Land Art installations. All these collectively give shape to what Líthica is today. The transformation of the quarry is still in progress: Toni the stone cutter’s words could be echoing throughout the quarries once again, as the time has come to share our experience and to restore to future generations the stone culture and techniques that are at risk of disappearing. For this reason in 2018 we published some educational handbooks on the craft of stone cutting and stone walling, and we carry on running guided visits for schools. This is not only to showcase this ancient knowledge but also to demonstrate how to appreciate and protect these cultural landscapes we have inherited from the past. The rebirth of the quarries is not merely the awakening of a site: it is also the awakening of awareness of the richness of man’s work with stone; of an alchemical space where contemporary perspective and archaic inheritance converge and meet, becoming a universal value LAETITIA LARA Fundació Lithica – Pedreres de s’Hostal Tel. 00 +34 971 481 578 www.lithica.es shostal@lithica.es

Two visions coming together: a traditional one seen by the old Menorcan stone cutter and one seen by the young French sculptor and architect. This was the commencement of a project that transcends cultural differences and focuses on the safeguarding of marés limestone quarries. The aim is to restore quarries and to highlight their importance as an expression of European stone cutting heritage and the unexpectedly beautiful and valuable places created by these activities. The initial meeting eventually evolved into an undertaking shared among people from different countries, by way of international work camps, concerts, sculpting workshops. Our project has been presented in European congresses and publications that are about stone, the recuperation of quarry landscapes and geology, in places such as Verona, Teruel, Murcia, Madrid or Paris, among others. Magazines and guide books have published articles about Líthica, which has now become one of the top heritage attractions of the island of Menorca. Our communication task is continually on the increase, with the publication of educational material, designing activities for school children and regular themed visits to the quarries such as labyrinths, landscaping, Land Art, botany and geology. The Líthica project has won prestigious awards for the conservation of heritage over the last few years: the Hispania Nostra award in 2017 and the European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award in 2019.