PARET D’ESQUERDES (CRACKED WALL)

The Ecologies of Stone research group was awarded a residency at Jørn Utzon’s Can Lis in Mallorca to conduct the artistic installation, Paret d’esquerdes (Cracked Wall).

During this residency we highlight the unique relation between geology, extraction, architecture, and the quarry as a landscape of healing or re-use. We study practices concerning the ecologies and cultures of quarrying, use and reuse of marès stone, and the impact of ecologically-informed architectural gestures, such as Can Lis itself.

Paret d’esquerdes is an artistic installation using dry-stacked, waste blocks of the local sandstone, called marés, in an unused quarry in Muro, Mallorca. The prototype wall (paret) utilises the irregular surfaces and cracks (esquerdas) of broken stone to provide a localised micro-ecology for hosting endemic plants, insects and animal life. It provides a starting point for discussing alternative public uses for the islands extensive, abandoned and unused quarry network.

Authors: Jonathan Foote, Urszula Kozminska, with Aulets Arquitectes.

Video: Robert Trempe, Jr. and Niels Rysz Olsen

Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond).

In connection with the Ecologies of Stone case study in Mallorca, Spain (marés).