Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Palerm + Tabares de Nava Arquitectos

Palerm + Tabares creates the illusion of earth flowing through architecture with its César Manrique Foundation Studio in the Canary Islands

By Sam Lubell

	Click images to enlarge Photo © Roland Halbe

A landscape of relatively fresh lava (dating from 18th-century eruptions) that looks like the surface of the moon against a backdrop of volcanic mountains and a sparkling ocean offers, to say the least, an amazing spectacle. In designing a studio space for the César Manrique Foundation’s artist-in-residence program in Lanzarote, the Canary Islands, Spanish architects Leopoldo Tabares and Juan Manuel Palerm sought to enhance the impact of this setting in order to inspire the painters and sculptors who come here for about a month each year.

Deferring to this context, the firm merged the building with its surroundings by placing most of the structure below ground. It clad many of the reinforced, poured-in-place concrete walls and piers with volcanic stones, and brought the surrounding topography into the studio. The architects also expanded the views via floor-to-ceiling windows and a strikingly angled concrete roof that acts as an observation deck. The design, rooted in a Modern aesthetic, intentionally departs from the closed, discrete, colonial-style architecture of the museum and main headquarters only a few feet away.

César Manrique, a painter, sculptor, and architect who was known for embracing the land with his jagged-edged art, started the private cultural foundation in 1982. The foundation headquarters and museum, completed in 1992, just before Manrique’s death in a car crash, blends with the volcanic landscape, and is clad in many places with local stones and constructed between the empty spaces in the lava. Its traditional Lanzarote aesthetic of blocky forms and smooth walls, rendered in white stucco, is enlivened with quirky touches.

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the People Architect Palerm + Tabares de Nava Arquitectos www.paltab.com paltab@paltab.com Partners: Juan Manuel Palerm, Leopoldo Tabares Draftsman: Sergio Garcîa Barbuzano Engineer(s) Structural engineer: FHECOR Ingenieros José Ramos www.fhecor.es General contractor Construcciones Bayanor Photographer Roland Halbe Fotografie Böheimstr. 45 D 70199 Stuttgart tel +49 711 6074073 fax +49 711 6074178 www.rolandhalbe.com

the Products Glazing Glass: Cristalería Insular, Lanzarote Lighting ERCO www.erco.com