A Balaton-felvidék népi építészete. A Balatonfüreden, 1997. május 21-23-án megrendezett konferencia anyaga (Szentendre-Veszprém, 1997)

Futó János: Építőkövek a Balaton-felvidéken

Stones as building material in the Balaton-Uplands JÁNOS FUTÓ This essay is about a detailed study of stones as building material in the Balaton-Uplands on the one hand and about the most important stones taken from queries in the surrounding regions (TapolcaBasin, Keszthely-Hill, South and North Bakony) on the other hand. We suppose that the local viniculture was one of the - certainly several - reasons why the traditional architecture has developed in such a way that stone became the most important building material. The soil of the farmed land was covered with rubble. First, the stones were carried to the border of the field and were used later to construct retaining walls. Mountain slopes were thus shaped in terraces which could be farmed, the walls offered protection against soil erosion and wind, furthermore, a favorable environment of micro-climate was produced. And not at last, building material was available for cellar and press houses to store wine. The special architecture which was developed in the vineyards has been carried over to the architecture in the settlements. The varied geologic composition of the Balaton-Uplands provided the region with a variety of local stones for building. We can follow up their use in walls of churches and castles from the Roman time up to the present day. The most typical stones of the area are the Triassic carbonates (limestone, dolomite, marl). Their very advantageous geological development - thin layers, layers separated by clay, cracks in transversal direction - contributed to their easier excavation and use in buildings by preference. Due to the numerous places of appearances of stones on the surface, almost every settlement has its own kind of stone, which they used to extract from small stone-pits. Normally, we find in villages one, may-be two prevailing types of stones for building. If several stone types are mixed within one wall, this means that stones taken from older buildings have been used in a later wall or that the building in question has been renovated or extended. The oldest stone in geologic terms is the red sandstone from the Permian period. Its deposition is very frequent near the lake Balaton, therefore, it has been used mainly in Vörösberény and Balatonfüred, in the area of Révfülöp and in the southern part of the Káli-Basin but it was carried farther away to be used by stone-cutters. The stone being frost resistant, easy to carve and decorative, was a popular building material of churches, crosses at the roadside and tombstones. The different varieties of Triassic stones are only suitable for walls due to their stratifying pattern and structural characteristics. There is no Jurassic, Cretaceous or Eocene limestone in the Balaton-Uplands, however, we know it as frequently used and popular building stone in the surrounding region. The porous Miocene limestone with a looser structure from the area of Zánka and the Tapolca-Basin is easy to carve and is used for statues, crosses and tombstones. Very special examples for these last are the heart-shaped tombstones in the cemetery of Balatonudvar. A kind of Pliocene sandstone (in the Káli-Basin) is very hard, containing binding material with flint and suitable for mill-stones and scythes-stones. The other one, a much softer type is used for walls and is preferred by stone-carvers because it can be well hewn. The use of dark-gray basalt from the Pliocene period is rather important for construction work, generally in the environment of former volcanoes. On the Tihany-peninsula and in Szigliget almost all building material was basalt tuff. Old stone buildings are disappearing in our days quite fast. It would be absolutely necessary to promote the research of stone buildings and to qualify for protection as many buildings as possible. The recently founded National Park of the Balaton-Uplands provides an excellent background for this purpose. 52