Antonio Velázquez Sicilia

Extraction of limestone, Stone carving, Stone masonry, Vaults and arches made of stone

NAME

ADDRESS:

28380 Colmenar de Oreja

Website

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK

Antonio carries out many different works, mainly with limestone from Colmenar de Oreja because of its characteristics and quality, even though he has used other types of limestone rocks, sandstone and marble stone. However, he never uses granite.

He manufactures from hammer dressed works for walls and paving stones manufactured with mallets to more sculptural works, façade finishings, decorations of interiors, courtyards, rehabilitations, and decorative and architectural elements, such as porticos, façades, arches, fountains, columns, basins, coats of arms, tiles, kerbs, paving stones, puteals, stone framings, eaves, etc.

He has carried out interventions in caves, but generally in Colmenar, in private dwellings or wine cellars. The aim of these interventions is to restore the buildings, strengthen their structures or extend them. He also advises on the extraction of stone elements.

The processes to be followed depend on the work to be carried out. What has most certainly changed a lot over the years is the process of extraction and cutting of the stone. This process is no longer a manual one: nowadays the stone is extracted with heavy machinery. Moreover, dynamite explosions are carried out in order to cut down on costs and time. Antonio advises on the identification of the stone veins which are extracted, studying the quality of them, since each vein has its own special characteristics and each work requires one or other.

The transformation of the blocks of stone, each of them with a different cutting, are carried out first in cutting workshops, advancing part of the work and therefore, theoretically, reducing the price of the final product. From that moment on they start shaping and giving texture to the different formats of stone. The way of working them varies if one aims for more traditional or innovative finishes. Depending on the final use of the piece different types of tools are used.

When it comes to restorations, rehabilitations or traditional masonry works they use tools such as mallets, tooth chisels, chisels, bell hammers, toothed stone axes, hand tracers, wedges, hammers and bush hammers. For other types of finishes they make use of electrical tools, pneumatic ones – such as the pneumatic hammer – electrical bush hammers, bailarín, or electrical shears to manufacture hammer dressed works and paving stones. In these cases, they tend to seek speed to obtain greater economic profitability, losing the traditional ways of manufacturing. However, this makes the work process also easier for the person in charge of carrying out the task.

APPRENTICESHIP

He was taught by his predecessors. He is the fourth generation of stonemasons in his family, the last one still carrying out the craft. His father and his uncles were the last crew working at the quarries of Colmenar de Oreja. They extracted stone in an artisanal way, as it had been done during the last centuries, and they worked in the same way. In the words of Antonio “what I know and what I am regarding it, I owe it entirely to them”.

SELECTED WORKS

Practically all of his works have been for private clients, been carried out in different cities and localities such as Madrid, Toledo, Soria, Brihuega, Consuegra, Alcalá de Henares, Pastrana, Chinchón, Aranjuez, Valdemoro, La Guardia…as well as other small works outside Spain.