Paquita Marí Tur remembers the first time she arrived at a construction site to work with stone.

It was in the 1990s, at Can Fornet, after three years of training at an Ibiza workshop-school specialising in stonework, archaeology and building.

She arrived with a four-person team, including three men and herself, to work with natural stone. The site had around a hundred workers, and she remembers dozens of them stopping to watch as she picked up her mallet and began breaking stone.

Today, the memory makes her laugh. At the time, it was an uncomfortable introduction to an industry in which very few women were working.

Marí went on to become the first woman from Ibiza to obtain the qualification of master artisan margera in 2001.

A margera specialises in constructing marges, the traditional dry-stone retaining walls that form such a distinctive part of Ibiza's rural landscape.

From a workshop-school to the construction site

Marí joined an unusual training project established by Ibiza Town Hall in 1991.

Under the direction of master craftsman Pep Fuentes, students received practical training in traditional building techniques and worked with companies and on projects around the city.

Marí learned both stonework and the construction of dry-stone walls.

Her work later contributed to paving and to the construction and restoration of traditional stone walls in and around Dalt Vila.

She had left secondary education after eighth grade and later completed her school qualification as an adult.

Initially, she had even considered archaeology. Instead, she became fascinated by stonework.

She describes the satisfaction of understanding how to strike a stone so that it breaks in the right place with minimal intervention.

Finding a place in a male-dominated industry

Getting her first job was considerably harder.

After completing her training, Marí approached construction companies looking for work. She recalls repeatedly being asked what she could do and whether there were other women in her field.

According to her account, companies often told her they would call her back, but the calls did not come.

Rather than abandoning the profession, she changed her approach.

Marí joined forces with colleagues from the workshop-school and formed a specialist team working on traditional retaining walls.

When the group arrived at construction sites, people initially assumed she was simply accompanying one of the men.

That changed once she picked up her tools and began working.

The team eventually became known locally as “sa colla de sa dona”, or “the woman's crew”.

Building a business around traditional stonework

The group eventually consisted of Marí, Manuel Vicente and Eduardo Fernández.

Marí and Vicente, who later became husband and wife, established their first stonework company, Sa Picassa.

The name referred to one of the tools traditionally used to work and shape stone.

Within the team, Marí took on what her teacher Pep Fuentes called the role of “the thinking head”.

Her job involved selecting the right stone, breaking and shaping it before another member of the team placed it into the wall.

She describes the process as partly mathematical and partly intuitive.

The mason has to understand the available space, select the appropriate stone and know exactly where to strike it.

Bringing back traditional lime production

The team's work with traditional construction techniques eventually extended beyond dry-stone walls.

They also helped revive the traditional production of lime, a practice that had almost disappeared.

Marí worked with other traditional craftsmen from Ibiza and Formentera, including master artisan Vicent Marí, known as Palermet.

On one project involving the restoration of a traditional farmhouse in Cala d'Hort, the team saw first-hand the importance of using lime in certain types of construction.

Marí explains that cement became increasingly common for repairing stone walls from the 1960s onwards.

She argues that cement can allow moisture into a wall while making it more difficult for that moisture to escape, whereas lime has traditionally allowed walls to breathe.

The team even built lime kilns and kept them operating for three days, following traditional methods.

Why the construction of a dry-stone wall matters

After decades in the trade, Marí remains critical of some modern approaches to traditional-looking walls.

She argues that some walls are constructed with large stones placed visibly at the front to create the desired appearance, while different materials are used behind them instead of a properly built stone structure.

Her concern is particularly related to drainage and structural stability.

In her view, water eventually finds a way through a poorly constructed wall, particularly during heavy rainfall.

These observations are Marí's professional assessment based on her experience in the trade, rather than an official engineering assessment.

A trade deeply connected to Ibiza's landscape

Marí has worked on numerous projects during her career, including listed or protected buildings such as Can Frare Verd in Sant Agustí, as well as private properties belonging to both Ibicencan and international owners.

She says relatively few clients are prepared to pay the cost and accept the time required to incorporate traditional construction techniques into modern properties.

That concerns her because dry-stone construction is not simply decorative.

The technique forms part of Ibiza's agricultural landscape and has practical functions in retaining sloping land and managing water.

Dry-stone construction, known locally as pedra en sec, was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2018.

Calling for more support and training

Marí also believes Ibiza needs more support to preserve both the physical walls and the knowledge required to build them.

She points to Mallorca as an example of an island where traditional dry-stone work has developed a much stronger institutional and professional presence.

Her proposals include greater financial support, legal protection and training opportunities for future margers and stoneworkers.

She also sees traditional retaining walls as increasingly relevant as the islands experience more intense rainfall events.

Her argument is that properly constructed marges can play an important role in dealing with water and protecting agricultural land.

Leaving the mallet behind

Marí stopped working professionally with stone around eight years ago.

She developed severe osteoarthritis in her right arm, which she describes as a consequence of years of professional work.

Her doctor warned that continuing the repetitive movements involved in using the pick and other tools could eventually prevent her from moving the arm normally.

She therefore made the difficult decision to leave the profession she had built her career around.

Sa Picassa came to an end about a year ago.

But Marí has not left teaching behind.

Today, she and her husband work with young archers through the Club de Tir amb Arc d'es Cubells and the Club d'Eivissa.

The tools have changed, but the idea of passing knowledge from one generation to another remains.

Where she once worked with a mallet and stone, she now works with a bow and arrow.

Preserving more than a wall

Paquita Marí's story is about more than entering a traditionally male profession.

It is also a story about one of Ibiza's traditional crafts and the people who have kept its techniques alive through changing construction practices.

The island's dry-stone walls are part of the rural landscape, but behind them is a body of knowledge about stone selection, construction, drainage and the relationship between buildings and the land.

For Marí, preserving that knowledge means ensuring that the craft itself continues to have a future.

And although she no longer works the stone herself, the experience she gained over decades remains part of Ibiza's living tradition.