ANCIENT TRADITION - CONTEMPORARY CRAFTMANSHIP

 

VE-VA's brickworks ihstory began long ago in the early 1800's. At the time "brickworkers" were usually migrant workers who would travel to construction site and build bricks on the premises with few means there available. The bricks were made from clay and water pug mixed with iron rods and poured into small wooden frame to shape and dry them.

Once dry, these bricks were used to build fireplaces, kilns, and chimneys needed for firing. The advent of Ancona - Bologna railway line led these itinerant workers to settle in one favourable location. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a fixed batch kiln was built in San Giovanni in Marignano, in the same area where Ve-Va factory still stands to this day.

Traces of the kiln remain and it's therefore possible to see that once it consisted of a square-based ditch with a tunnel halfway up for filling and emptying. At that time production consisted solely of bricks and pantiles. At the end of the nineteenth century (in 1885 to be precise), the first continuous kiln was built following the Hoffmann technique, which was at that time considered an avantgarde production. Since then, VE-VA has always been a leader in its field, installing up to date machinery that allowed our production to reach the highest quality standards on the market. In the 1950's, VE-VA produced everything necessary for building construction, including walls, flooring, attics and roofing.

The 1970's brought automation and specialisation and in order to guarantee excellent quality it became necessary to concentrate the company's efforts on a more limited range of production. So in 1973 a tunnel kiln was built and a new era of monoproduction began for VE-VA and still distinguishes the company nowadays.

Two particular aspects of our long history are worthy of mention: first the tradition of our craftmanship has been handed down from generation to generation; secondly we have continuously modernized our technology. These two elements have always guaranteed a product that meets today's market demands and standards and the result is high quality.

Indeed, quality is fundamental for a product that has to defy time and adapt to the most different climatic conditions. After almost two centuries of experience, VE-VA has evolved into a modern, efficient factory specialized today in the production of two types of roofing tiles, "portoghesi" and "marsigliesi", available in natural, shiny red, dark brown and white straw, as well as various versions of "antiqued" tiles.

Naturally none of this would be possible without the applicative research and studies carried out by our research laboratory on both raw materials and the finished product. For example, specially developed VE-VA roman tiles cover the Malatesta Temple in Rimini, which was rebuilt after the Second World War, and in the green version, they provide roofing for one of the mosques in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As you can see, we have a very broad market!