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This book is about the stone used to build the castles of Edward I in North West Wales. It provides a description of the available geological resources and the building materials used in the construction of Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris Castles. It takes a broad view of this subject, placing the stone used in the castles in the context of both earlier and later buildings across the region of study, from the Neolithic up until the present day. The book will serve as a useful source book for geologists, archaeologists, architects, representatives of the natural stone industry, historians and cultural heritage management professionals specifically and for academic and non-academic communities, travellers and tourism industry operators in general.

Apulian limestones constitute the historic building constructions of the Puglia region (in the south of Italy) named trulli (representing an outstanding universal value for UNESCO), but also other stone buildings of the well-known Itria Valley. Trulli are drywall (mortarless) constructions made of roughly worked limestone blocks collected from neighbouring fields. The limestone for trulli is quarried from different Apulian localities and, together with another local lithotype, represents the stone heritage of the Itria Valley. This book begins with an introduction to the region of southern Italy where trulli and other typical stone architecture can be found. The Itria Valley with its towns and landscape and the town of Alberobello are described from an architectural point of view. The second section describes the different examples of building constructions in local stone of the Itria Valley, focusing on ancient and contemporary quarries. In this part petrographic and physical mechanical characteristics of the main kind of limestones are reported and discussed. The third part focuses on the main examples of stone architecture of Itria Valley, distinguishing the historical rural buildings from the other historical civil ones. In this section particular attention is given to best practices of evaluation action, protection rules and restoration methods for stone heritage in Itria Valley and Alberobello. This book serves as a useful source of information to geologists, archaeologists, architects, historians and stone industry operators specifically, and to academic and non-academic communities, travellers, and tourism industry operators in general. The book will also be of interest to students, researchers, and rock enthusiasts spanning all age groups and academic levels.

There are many UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Germany. Most of them are built with natural stones. These sites are commonly presented to the public with a lot of information regarding historical, cultural and artistic aspects. Mostly, there is no focus on the main building material if it concerns natural stones. This work aims to show that it is precisely the natural stone that lends the sites their distinctive character. The used stones demonstrate the context and the interaction with the geology of the surrounding countryside as well as possibilities of transport and treatment. They reflect the culture and society at the time of the building phases. The second part of the work presents the most important stones that were used at these sites, along with their occurrences, aspects of quarrying in historical times and of course their petrographical, mineralogical and technical features. It is shown how these features influence the weathering of the stones and how restoration of stones is carried out. The book will serve as a useful source book for geologists, archaeologists, architects, representatives of the natural stone industry, historians and cultural heritage management professionals specifically, and for academic and nonacademic communities, travelers and tourism industry operators in general.

This book is made up of contributions dealing with heritage stones from different countries around the world. The stones are described, as well as their use in vernacular and contemporaneous architecture. Heritage stones are those stones that have special significance in human culture. Examples include some very important stones that have been either neglected because they are no longer extracted, or stones that have great significance in commercial terms but knowledge of their national and/or international heritage has not been well documented. In this collection of articles, we have tried to spread awareness of architectural heritage around the world, the natural stones that have been used in its construction, and the need to preserve historical quarries that once provided the source of such stones. Historical quarries are linked to regional culture and tradition. Because of the specific technical and aesthetical characteristics of heritage stones, which have lasted for centuries, these historical quarries should be preserved to be able to use the stones for the proper restoration of monuments and historical buildings to avoid negative actions that can be observed in many places in the restoration of buildings, which are some times part of World Heritage sites. The final intention of this book is to continuosly grow the interest on this fascinating subject of heritage stones.

Natural stone is considered to be a versatile, durable and aesthetically pleasing building material. From the beginning of civilization, important structures and monuments have been built from, or based on, natural stone. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the use of local stone re-sources was mostly in balance with the local environment. Strict environ-mental legislation has resulted in the closing of many long-standing quar-ries in industrialized countries, which has led to a shortage of traditional stone varieties. This has caused problems for restoration practice. Cheap, imported stone from less industrialized countries has become more widely available in recent years. Some of the issues related to built stone conservation and restoration cov-ered by this volume are: the establishment of inventories of possible re-placement stones; understanding the decay mechanism and use of preven-tive conservation methods for slowing down decay processes; evaluation of the properties of natural stone; and assessing the risks of using replacement stones of different qualities.

The weathering of historical buildings and, indeed, of monuments and sculptures of natural stone is a problem that has been encountered for hundreds of years. However a dramatic increase in deterioration in the structure of our built heritage has been observed during the past century. To understand the complex interaction that the stone in a building suffers with its near environment (the building) and the macro environment (the local climate and atmospheric conditions) requires an interdisciplinary approach and the application of many disciplines. Climate change over the next 100 years is likely to have a range of direct and indirect impacts on many natural and physical environments, including the built environment. The protection of our architectural heritage has both cultural and historical importance, as well as substantial economic and ecological value. Large sums of money are being spent world-wide on measures for the preservation of monuments and historical buildings. The past few decades has seen an unprecedented level of research activity in this area, the result of which is often difficult to access and are summarized in the new edition of STONE IN ARCHITECTURE. The 4th edition of Stone in Architecture: Properties, Durability, is a sophisticated and thorough exploration of stone – its properties, performance and conservation – in monumental contexts. The current editors, Siegfried Siegesmund and Rolf Snethlage, note the pioneering work of Erhard Winkler who wrote the first edition in 1973 when so little information could be found in the literature on the subject. This new edition, also published by Springer, nearly doubles the size of Winkler’s 1994 effort. If you are familiar with the field and need to know little more than this statement, you can put aside this review and go buy the book. George Wheeler, Department of Scientific Research, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.