Manrique, part three

I've studied a LOOOT of buildings, and I'm never impressed with the glitzy, the glossy, the biggest, the tallest. If you have huge amounts of money, anything is possible and it makes me lose interest. What really impresses me are great buildings with really narrow budgets, buildings that capture the essence of a landscape or buildings that bring something new into the field of architecture. Not only facades decorated in a new way, but something more fundamental.

I guess what I liked so much about the Manrique buildings is that they took me by surprise, much due to their surprisingly close relationship to the different landscapes they're placed in, and their innovative and sculptural qualities. The fact that they had some pretty amazing 60s and 70s features didn't harm either:-)

The first one I showed you, challenges our perception of how a home could be. Lit only from above, the dwelling is like a cave that you might perceive as either protective or claustrophobic, and the most basic quality of a home, the view out of a window, is nonexistent. Quite a lot of buildings challenge how much transparency we can take, this does quite the opposite. It's an amazingly cool dwelling, a complete work of art, but would you live there? I mean, really? Probably not. It is, without doubt, the most challenging of the three buildings.

The second one is also a cave, but a very different one. It's all about the wind, the view, the scary height and the protective feeling of the mountain literally surrounding and protecting you.

This third building is all about fire. It's a restaurant/ visitors centre in Timanfaya National Park, in the Montañas del Fuego (Fire Mountains), built in 1970. Manrique was quite an eco- activist and is given much of the credit for the preservation of the islands' strange and dramatic landscapes. The island has a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve "protected site status", which is the resason why tourism is held in a tight leash.

The Montañas del Fuego were created between 1730 and 1736 when more than 100 volcanoes, covering more than 50 km², rose up and devastated this part of the island (including several villages). The last eruptions were in 1824, however due to the low rainfall (and therefore lack of erosion) this area appears much the same as it did just after the eruptions. In 1968 the area was declared a national park, Parque Nacional de Timanfaya. This part of the island is very unique, unlike anything you've seen before, because of its unique 'Martian' landscape and rare plant species.

 

  
The building lies horizontally on the highest of the volcanic hilltops, the Islote del Hilario, like a part of the hill itself. Just 10 centimeters under the surface, the temperature of the ground is 140 degrees Celcius, 6 meters deeper, it's 400. The building had to be constructed of non- combustible materials, like stone, glass and metal. There is a special kind of heat insulation in the floors.

It's hard to imagine just how hot the temperature below the surface actually is, but it's demonstrated outside the building. Dry brush is thrown into a shallow hole in the ground and catches fire immediately. The most spectacular demonstration is when water is poured into a hole and erupts seconds later like an icelandic geyser. The restaurant kitchen utilizes the geothermal heat by preparing the food on a unique barbecue (a cast-iron grill placed over a large hole in the ground), powered by the inferno boiling beneath the earth's crust.The barbecue, the visualization of the natural drama going on just below your feet, is wonderfully articulated as a focuspoint in the building's architecture, it's inside the cone shaped volume in the first picture.

 

The entrance area has a supporting column disguised as a wonderful sculpture. All around are vertical windows that gives you glimpses of the landscape outside and prepares you for the panoramic views in the dining area. If you look beyond the typical spanish restaurant style wooden furniture and checkered tablecloths and have a closer look at the construction,  the inner courtyard and the narrow band of windows that makes the roof appear floating, you can see it's a wonderful space.

In between the building volumes are areas sheltered by stone walls, protecting you from the strong wind. These are so strong, sculptural and sharp, and made out of lava stone, represent the landscape, but in a geometricized version

I hope I haven't bored you with too much architecture talk, I'm sure the next posts will be thrifting updates:-)