Os piqueros de Soduroel. David Orna and Juan José Estallo have been selected by the Traditional Building Cultures Foundation and INTBAU Spain as the master craftspeople of the month for March 2025.
The craft of the piqueros began to disappear in the Pyrenees with the arrival of the Arab tile and, later, slate tiles from Galicia—both more affordable and easier to install. Although today they carry out various types of masonry work, piqueros are specialized in the construction of stone slab roofs.
To build these roofs, they use roundwood beams, sometimes harvested directly from the forest. Over the structure, they lay a layer of tasca—a mixture of grass and earth—that helps the stone slabs settle more securely. They also construct dry-stone walls and garden or orchard terraces using dry-stone techniques, working with flix, a local stone that is both abundant and easy to shape. Whenever possible, they reuse materials from abandoned huts or buildings, reducing the need to purchase from quarries. All the tools they use are traditional: they cut stones with two hammers, use brick chisels and spalling or bush hammers for texturing slabs, and also work with picoleta pick mattocks (known elsewhere as alcatones), carbide point chisels, etc.
You can discover more about their work and activity in their profile in the Spanish Network of Traditional Building Crafts Masters:
