Why I founded House of Kacinari
House of Kacinari did not begin with the idea of making just another website.
It grew out of a relationship with knowledge, craft, and tradition that has been passed through generations in my family.
I grew up around goldsmithing, jewellery, and filigree work. As a child, I spent time in my father’s jewellery shop and workshop in Zagreb, surrounded by objects made by people who had built their craft over years and decades. There I learned early that behind a well-made object there is much that a buyer may never see: knowledge of materials, experience, precision, patience, responsibility, and respect for work that existed before us.
Later, I formally studied goldsmithing, passed the master craftsman examination, and continued my education in fields connected with diamonds, gemstones, and jewellery.
The more I learned, the clearer it became how large this field is.
A diamond is not only a beautiful object.
At the same time, it is a mineral, a crystal, a geological record, an optical material, an object of cutting, the result of a craft, a commodity, a cultural symbol, a historical object, an object of scientific research, and, for many people, one of the most important purchases of their lives.
And yet, public knowledge about diamonds is very often reduced to a few simplified terms, sales language, or information copied from one another without a clear answer to the basic question:
How do we know that what we are reading is truly accurate?
The book Diamonds: The Book began to emerge from that question.
And House of Kacinari gradually emerged from the book.
Knowledge should be accessible
From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to make the foundational edition of the book available free of charge.
Not because professional education has no value.
Quite the opposite.
Quality education, laboratory practice, good teachers, institutions, and professional qualifications have a value that an online publication should not try to imitate.
But access to basic knowledge should not depend on whether someone can buy an expensive book.
If we can make knowledge accessible without simplifying it beyond recognition, I believe that we should do so.
Knowledge should be shared. Expertise should be built, verified, and demonstrated.
A free book is not a substitute for education.
It is an invitation to education.
I do not want a reader to trust me because I am the author
One of the most important decisions in creating House of Kacinari was that authority must not be a substitute for evidence.
I do not want a reader to accept something because my name appears beneath the text.
I want them to be able to see where a claim comes from, what it is based on, how strong the evidence is, where its limits are, and whether there is serious evidence that says otherwise.
If better evidence shows that we were wrong, the text must change. Not the evidence.
Craft and science
Theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge are not enemies, but neither are they the same thing.
A laboratory can measure something that the eye cannot see.
A master craftsperson can recognise a problem that does not appear in a laboratory report.
A historian can show that a story repeated by the industry for decades developed much later than assumed.
A physicist can explain why light behaves in a particular way.
A geologist can explain processes that began billions of years before a stone came into human hands.
Serious understanding arises when we do not try to reduce these perspectives to one another, but connect them properly.
Preserving what easily disappears
Much craft knowledge has never been systematically documented.
It was passed from master to apprentice, from parent to child, from workshop to workshop, through tools, objects, photographs, old books, catalogues, and the stories of people who lived that work.
That is why I want House of Kacinari, over time, to become a place that also preserves goldsmithing, jewellery, and related cultural heritage, especially Croatian and Zagreb heritage.
Not as a nostalgic museum of the past, but as a living archive that connects what was with what we can still learn.
The name
House of Kacinari bears my surname.
That gives me additional responsibility.
If we publish something, we should know why we published it.
If we make a claim, we should be able to show what it is based on.
If we cite someone’s work, we should attribute it properly.
If we use someone else’s photograph, we should have the right to use it.
If we receive support, we should disclose it.
If we recommend something that we ourselves sell, the reader should know that.
If we make a mistake, we should correct it.
And if we cannot do something well enough, it is better not to do it.
Quality before quantity.
Not building breadth for appearances
House of Kacinari should grow in depth before breadth.
It is better to have one serious reference project than ten impressive covers with insufficient content behind them.
Independence
Until now, I have developed and funded House of Kacinari independently.
In the future, I would like the project to be able to work with institutions, museums, archives, educational establishments, professional organisations, public bodies, and other people who can help make its work better and more accessible.
Support can increase what we can do. It cannot determine what we must conclude.
House of Kacinari is not conceived as an advertising platform.
I do not want to sell the reader’s attention.
Something that can endure
Digital platforms change. Technologies become obsolete. Formats disappear. People come and go.
Knowledge must have structure. Sources must have a trail. Rights must be documented. Publications must have versions. Archives must have provenance. Methodology must be written down.
If House reaches that level, it is no longer only a project that I made. It becomes something that can continue to be built.
For future readers
House should be judged by simple questions:
Were we precise?
Did we respect sources?
Did we acknowledge the limits of our own knowledge?
Did we preserve something worth preserving?
Did we enable people to learn something they did not know before?
Were we prepared to correct ourselves when we were wrong?
And did we leave the system a little better than we found it?
If the answer to those questions is affirmative, House of Kacinari has fulfilled its purpose.
Marko Kačinari
Founder, House of Kacinari
Zagreb
Veritas supra omnia.