Bodegas Perez Cruz
Paine, Chile
Jose Cruz Ovalle - Arquitecto

A building gives Architectural expression to a family’s relationship with the land and its commitment to winemaking

By Clifford A. Pearson

© Roland Halbe

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

José Cruz Ovalle’s new building for the Bodegas Perez Cruz (no relation) seems to grow expressively from the local soil. Carved from the Perez Cruz family’s 1,300-acre farm in the Maipo Valley 30 miles outside of Santiago, the 370-acre vineyard sits at the foot of the Andes Mountains and enjoys a temperate, almost Mediterranean climate.

When the Perez Cruz family decided to get into the wine business, it ran a competition among a few architects and was impressed by Cruz’s feeling for the land. His previous work—such as the Hotel explora in Patagonia, designed with Germán del Sol [record, October 1996, page 108]—showed an affinity to dramatic settings.

While some wineries today are part hotel or restaurant or retail store, the Bodegas Perez Cruz is all production facility. Essentially a factory and warehouse for wine, the building could easily have been a dumb shed. No need to grab the tourist’s eye with fancy architecture here. So Cruz’s sinuous design isn’t an appeal to the occasional visitor, but an organic expression of the activities performed inside and the character of the natural setting outside.

The building houses large spaces for fermenting wine in great stainless-steel vats, aging wine in oak barrels and glass bottles, and smaller spaces for research and tasting by the winemakers. It also accommodates the trucks used to deliver grapes and distribute bottles of wine to the rest of the world.

Cruz designed the building as paired barrel-vaulted volumes that snake along the land. The barrel forms and use of wood recall time-honored elements in winemaking, while the building’s bending columns and remarkable interior spaces point in a more idiosyncratic direction.

From a distance, the winery looks like one long building hugging the land. But as you get closer, you see that it is really three smaller structures connected by a common, double-jointed roof. Where the building bends, it creates two great covered patios where people can gather and enjoy a shaded outdoor space. Inside, some of the vaulted structure is kept open as double-height rooms, while some is divided by a mezzanine. A cellar runs under part of the building, offering space for secondary-fermentation equipment.

Cruz used laminated wood for structural elements such as columns, arches, and roof beams. He also created space between the building’s distinctive barrel vaults and its roof so air can circulate and daylight can filter down from small clerestory windows and skylights. The architect says that all the wood used came from environmentally managed sources.

See the May 2003 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Bodegas Perez Cruz

Location:
Paine, Chile

Gross square footage:
6,000 sq m

Total construction cost:
$2,500,000

Owner:
Familia Perez Cruz
www.perezcruz.com

Architect:
Jose Cruz Ovalle - Arquitecto
Espoz 2902, Santiago, Chile
T/ 56-2-206 61 45
F/ 56-2- 206 08 57