I first visited the Jameos del Agua in Lanzarote around 14 years ago with my two children, who at the time were probably eight or nine years old. As I was on holiday, it was a rare opportunity to actually enjoy and reflect on the experience of architecture without feeling the need to explain or document it as I do in the course of my working day.
The subterranean arts and tourism complex, built in the 1960s to 70s, was designed by artist César Manrique, and is probably best known for its white limewashed basalt rock pool filled with filtered sea-water. What surprised me most about this pool was that using just paint, one can define a space. It’s not even ‘making’ a space, but simply delineating a pre-existing feature.
Manrique designed this complex – including a restaurant and bar, poolside terrace and 550-seat auditorium – out of a series of three connected tube-like caves called jameos. A jameo – a word from the pre-Spanish Guanche island culture – is a cave formed by air escaping through lava, and these particular jameos were created by the eruption of the La Corona volcano some 3,000 years ago.
The Lanzarote-born Manrique was a painter and a sculptor, not an architect – though he did study the discipline for a few months before changing to study fine art instead in Madrid in 1945. Though he travelled, exhibited widely and lived in New York City for a period of time, he returned to Lanzarote in the 1960s, drawn back to the flat volcanic island landscape.
Eruptions have left a beautiful black, moulded landscape, in which lava has solidified into sculptural shapes. Creating habitations in this inhospitable setting, Manrique worked directly in the landscape and completed several built projects on the island. They form entry points, helping one engage with the beauty and function of the landscape as a kind of architecture.
While Jameos del Agua is a heritage site, it is not strictly protected, or treated like a monument with lines that you cannot cross, so you naturally feel able to explore and experience it. It struck me that the children also responded to this place – they understood it and enjoyed it – and I think that says something about the architecture.
Inspiration never comes back one to one. As an architect, you are inspired by certain things you see, and then you do something with that, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. But I think Jameos del Agua taught me that you can make architecture with very limited tools. You don’t need to detail everything in order to make a space you can use. What is important is that the spatial concept of your building is at the heart of everything. Any finish, furniture or person that passes by is changing all the time.
Manchester International Festival runs from 29 June to 16 July at Factory International. Details: factoryinternational.org
