Natural stone doesn’t just look great on a small scale like for your bathroom tiles and kitchen countertops. It’s also used in lots of constructions throughout the world. From functional buildings to stunning statues and architecture, natural stone is the perfect building block for lots of different uses. Let’s look at some different types of natural stone and the famous architecture you might have seen them in.

Marble

If you walk into the lobby of a luxurious hotel, then it’ll likely be adorned with marble columns or other marble features. It’s an extremely popular building material for this kind of aesthetic, and has also long been used in sculpting thanks to its durability, which is why we can still admire some of these works of art hundreds and even thousands of years later.

The Statue of David by Michelangelo is perhaps one of the most famous marble statues to exist. This 17-foot-tall figure was sculpted in the early 1500s and is still on show in Florence, Italy in the Accademia Gallery. The Venus de Milo is another famous marble sculpture, housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, sculpted in ancient Greek times more than 2,000 years ago.

In the US, both the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial are great examples of marble structures. And lots of other landmarks around the world are made from marble, including the Taj Mahal in India, the Pantheon in Italy, and the Parthenon in Greece.

Sandstone

You may already know that the White House is an example of sandstone architecture. The walls were constructed from gray-colored sandstone. There are conflicting stories about how the building got its signature white color, with some claiming it was painted white to hide damage after fires during the war of 1812. While other sources say that a lime-based whitewash was used during construction in 1798.

Granite

Granite is another great building material, so what famous landmarks can you see that boast this attractive and durable stone? Well you may have already seen one if you’ve visited South Dakota and Mount Rushmore. Those 60-foot presidential portraits were carved out of granite over a span of 14 years.

Find out more about the different kinds of natural stone that we use at Amanzi Granite, or visit our showroom in Kernersville to see our stone for yourself when planning for an upcoming home improvement project around Winston Salem, Greensboro, High Point, and Kernersville, NC.