Casa de Los Volcanes, Haría

About

Jameos del Agua is a natural space and a cutural center conceived by the artist and architect César Manrique, and is part of the network of Art, Culture and Tourism Centers (CATC) of Lanzarote. The intervention, developed in phases over more than twenty years, is situated along the section of the lava tube of La Corona that runs closest to the sea, and is made up of a subterranean garden and a building complex known as Casa de Los Volcanes. The subterranean garden is a total work of art, a territorial readymade that foreshadows the land art movement and anticipates the concept of public art. The Casa de Los Volcanes was initially designed to harbor a hotel, but this idea was set aside during its construction. As a result, part of the complex remained unfinished and unused. Since then, Jameos del Agua is an open project with latent spaces concealed from visitors, waiting to be put to new use. The project makes use of micro-demolitions in the interior spaces originally intended for use as apartments, thus opening them up for inclusion as exhibition spaces and adding an extra layer to the building’s dynamics. The project retains the white volumes that characterize the external appearance of the Casa de Los Volcanes and preserves the structure’s footprint and spatial organization consisting of voids alternating with filled spaces, as defined by the sequences of patios and terraces between the blocks; it proposes moving from the transversal, atomized reality of the terraced apartment modules to a linear, longitudinal reality that integrates the exhibition space into the complex’s single, continuous route, while at the same time offering visitor-friendly connection points between the building’s different levels.

Sources

• Arquitectura Viva