When César Manrique returned to his native Canary Islands from New York he didn’t like what he saw. On other islands, tall concrete hotels lined the beaches. His own island of Lanzarote had escaped most of this development, but if things kept going that wouldn’t last.
As a young man Manrique left the islands, fought in the Spanish Civil War. Disillusioned by his experience, after the war he concentrated on art and design in Madrid. Later he got a grant from Nelson Rockefeller to start a studio in New York working with, among others, Andy Warhol. In the late ‘60s he returned home.
His believed architecture should live in harmony with nature and the traditions of the region. He successfully lobbied for building restrictions to limit structures to two stories, three in certain circumstances and require that they be whitewashed with blue, green or brown trim (shutters and gutters.)
He then started designing and building. One of his buildings was Timanfaya National Park Visitor’s Center and its logo, “El Diablo” a devil with a pitchfork. He made up a legend to go with the logo.
Volcanic eruptions in the early 1700s opened the ground under a church where a wedding was taking place. The opened ground swallowed the bride. The groom grabbed a pitchfork and tried to rescue her. But she was dead. Blackened by the volcano, the distraught husband ran up the mountain and held the pitchfork above his head and howled in anguish, backlit by the red glow of the volcano. People took him for the devil. No use designing a logo without a bespoke legend to go with it. A local company improved on the legend saying the groom was named Alo and the bride Vera. The company made skin balms from a certain cactus.
Some of his works grace the town. He has several “Wind Toys” that make traffic roundabouts interesting and some statues in the island’s capital Arrecife.
We had intended to get off the ship and wander, which we did. But when we heard a lecture by Katie Chang on Manrique we decided to visit one of his buildings. The closest to Arrecife, where we docked, was Volcano House, a 15 minute cab ride. The house is the headquarters of the Foundación César Manrique. It was his home for 20 years before he moved up island. He redesigned it as a museum to house his art collection and some of his own art, as well as showing off how he incorporated natural features into the building.
The building is built in a lava field over five “lava bubbles” that provide space for a swimming pool, barbeque pit and a dance floor for parties. The house is decorated by mosaics designed by Manrique and skulls found in the lava.
The yard is a cactus garden with grape vines protected from wind by semicircular lava stone walls.
Our visit to Volcano House turned what would have been a perfectly pleasant day strolling through an attractive seaside town into an event.
