Hartea: Joseba Lekuona Yaben has created a marble dinner service from a piece of the La Concha railing
Hartea: Joseba Lekuona Yaben has created a marble dinner service from a piece of the La Concha railing
At the beginning of the twentieth century, San Sebastián’s municipal architect, Juan Rafael Alday, installed a railing along the entire length of La Concha Bay that has become an icon of the city. Inaugurated in 1916 by King Alfonso XIII, the famous cast iron railing is supported by a base and pilasters made of Gris Deba marble from the Lastur quarry. Said quarry is the main ornamental rock mine in the Basque Coast Geopark and one of the most important quarries in the Basque Country. Mining has been carried out there for over 100 years. As a result, this type of rock is widespread throughout Gipuzkoa today. The Sanctuary of Arantzazu, the Boulevard, and the San Sebastián Port are made of this variety of marble, as well as the majority of the Basque pelota courts. The quarry is spectacular due to its coloring, its large mining sites, and the existence of stepped tiers in its walls. Urgonian limestone is mined there from the Erlo formation (Albian age), formed on a shallow carbonate reef platform. Gris Duquesa and Gris Deba marble, the main ornamental rocks extracted from the Lastur quarries, are characterized (in addition to their color and petrophysical features) by the wealth of tabular and hemispherical coral colonies they contain (limestone that is frequently recrystallized), together with bivalves and benthic foraminifera. Despite being limestone formations that seem massive in size, the arrangement of the sparsely transported coral colonies (with clear vertical stacking during colonization and gravitational accumulations) reveals the true architecture of the reef seabed where the Geopark’s limestone was formed.
The Gris Deba marble in question is a symbol of San Sebastian in and of itself (thanks to the famous railing mentioned above), and Joseba Lekuona Yaben is a stone enthusiast who has been working as a stonemason and artist for more than three decades and who wanted to pay tribute to this local marble variety by designing something unique from the material. Lekuona Yaben makes pieces that harmoniously combine proportions, lines, colors, and sounds, selling sculptural tableware through his brand Hartea – products that represent a turning point in the way fine dining is conceived. Starting with the original base of a fragment of the railing, the artist has now created a dinner service consisting of eight plates, a large base, and a concave lid. Maintaining the pieces’ structural shape, the exterior has been textured with sand, achieving the same warp that sea sand creates. After hashing out the plates, they are manually polished, giving them a mirror effect. This luxury dinner service, known as “San Sebastián,” invites diners to interact with the materials in a poetic and playful way, allowing them to enjoy an exceptional gastronomic experience.
At his workshop in Urnieta (which can be visited by appointment), Lekuona enthusiastically demonstrates how he works with stone to create his magnificent tableware, used in luxury restaurants around the world. His pieces are also available at the Lukas store in the exclusive María Cristina Hotel and at Sorgin Gallery in San Sebastián.
Hartea
Tel.: +34 628 552 300
