Rosa Beta Granite

The Sardinian landscape, where massive granite formations are found, is typically featured by scattered ancient stone monuments, which blend harmoniously with the remoteness of the surrounding nature. In the so-called ‘Granite towns’ of Sardinia, granite was the building material of first choice for one millennium. Archaeology shows that this stone has been used since prehistoric times, because of its granitic boulders, for the construction of a wide range of buildings and artifacts (e.g. dolmen, menhir, nuraghi). The Romans made frequent use of this rock, and opened quarries by the coast (e.g. Capo Testa quarry) to facilitate the export of the rock across the Tyrrhenian sea, to be used in Roman Imperial age buildings. In the Middle Ages, castles and churches were built and many buildings were constructed in the pre-industrial era by exploiting local outcrops. The industrial age made Sardinian granites known throughout the world due to the planning of quarries with industrial methods and the use of the first explosives (e.g. Cala Francese quarry).
In the 19th century, an export company traded the pink granite in Italy and worldwide (Brazil and Egypt); in Gallura, for about half a century there was a large, close-knit community of Sardinian quarrymen and stonemasons which led the quarrying and processing of Rosa Beta granite to be the most thriving industry of northern Sardinia. However, the company was affected by the consequences of the Great Depression that had overtaken the American economy. For the next few decades, the Island’s stone production consisted mainly of building stone for the local market.
Thanks to its high technical and aesthetic properties, as well as its excellent finishing qualities, Sardinian granite soon achieved great success in the national and international markets from the 1960s until 2000; in that decades, Architects of the American school made a strong contribution to the use of Sardinian granite. Rosa Beta granite conquered international markets (90% of Italian granite was quarried in Sardinia at that time) with several iconic buildings around the world.