Master stonemason sets up shop

THE German craftsman who, working with marble and granite has left his mark on several of New Zealand's best known buildings, will be setting up business in Wairarapa.
Stonemason Alfred Dinger from Bahlingen near the Black Forest in south Germany worked on the refurbishment of the Beehive, Parliament buildings, the National Library and Court of Appeal.
Mr Dinger's now living in Carterton with wife Lynda, and in his business in will turn his hand to creating with marble and granite, floors, walls, steps, benches and his specialty ? spiral staircases in Italian marble.
The craft of the stonemason is an ancient one and has seen the creation of buildings, structures and sculpture using stone from the ground and used to construct some of the most long-lasting, monuments, artefacts, cathedrals in cities in a wide variety of cultures.
Put simply, stonemasonry is the craft of turning rough stone blocks into accurate geometrical shapes, mostly simple, but some of great complexity, and then fixing the stones together with mortar to form buildings.
Mr Dinger learnt the craft in Germany and graduated from university as a master craftsman in concrete and terrazzo, a smooth, multi-coloured floor made of marble or stone chips embedded in a cement binder, and then highly polished.
He had his own business in Germany which also included making and exhibiting headstones and writing the inscriptions
In August 2003, Mr Dinger was on a working holiday in New Zealand and in a vineyard in Martinborough there was Lynda who drove the tractor.
"He couldn't speak a word of English and we spent most of our time not knowing what the other was saying," she said.
"Wasn't that romantic?"
At the end of the holiday Mr Dinger want back to Germany for a month then returned to Wairarapa and the couple were married last year.
As well as his work in Wellington, Mr Dinger has stayed closer to home putting in new bathrooms and terraces in marble and granite in the refurbishment of Copthorne Solway Park.
He said marble was composed mostly of calcite ? a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, and used extensively as a building material as well as for sculpture.
Places named after the stone include Marble Arch, London; India's Marble Rocks ? there are also the Elgin Marbles, marble sculptures from the Parthenon that are on display in the British Museum and which were brought to Britain by the Earl of Elgin.
Granite is a common igneous rock generally composed of feldspar and mica and quartz and is one of the hardest stones.
But with great persistence and care, simple mouldings can and have been carved into granite, but generally it is used for purposes that require its strength and durability.