» Lasa marble world-wide

Even though marble has only been quarried commercially and in relatively large quantities at Laas (Lasa) since the middle of the last century, in 1848, the rights to quarrying the local marble were taken over of a certain Bernhard Schweitzer, a sculptor from Munich, the regional capital of Bavaria in Germany. These quarries then supplied stone to Schwanthaler, sculptor at the court of Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1865, a certain Johannes Steinhäuser arrived from Karlsruhe and founded the “Laas Marble Company”, the first important company of its kind in the region. Josef Lechner later started extracting marble from the Weißwasser (White Water) quarry in 1883.

These men were indeed the great pioneers of the marble industry at Laas (Lasa). The turn of the century saw the peak of the marble trade in the area and the raw material was shipped to countries both near and far including European states as well as to foreign royal families and the United States of America. Today, sculptures made from Lasa marble can be admired as far afield as Ryadh, Kuala Lumpur, Auroville in India, Abu-Dhabi, London, Memphis Tennessee USA and Singapor.