This incredible underground house has been created within a series of volcanic “bubbles” on the Spanish island of Lanzarote by local born artist and architect, Cesar Manrique
Manrique returned home from America in 1966, just as the tourist industry on Lanzarote began to take off. He was determined to stop his beloved island becoming buried beneath a sea of Hotels, so He decided to build a home, using land that had instead been buried beneath a sea of lava
It perfectly encapsulates his organic approach and desire to create a perfect symbiosis between man, art and nature, and this ingenious feat of architecture was Manrique´s first major piece of work on Lanzarote
He championed an ecological approach towards development, and demonstrated both his skills as an architect and what could be achieved by uniting art with nature.
It comprises of the five underground bubbles which are interconnected, Visitors enter the main dwelling through double doors which open directly onto a small courtyard, where the top of a palm tree can be seen poking out of one of the bubbles.
The route through the house takes you through the upper floor – which houses a considerable modern art collection, including drawings by Picasso, Miro and other renowned artists. Then you start the descent to the volcanic bubble rooms. Once you have reached the bottom of the volcanic staircase you enter the first bubble, where there is a fountain quietly murmuring in the background… A doorway opens into the rock and you pass through a short passage way to the first living room – an elegant space, decorated with a white marble coffee table, a beautiful royal palm and a built in concrete sofa with white vinyl cushions.
From there the passage leads into the red bubble, which has a centrepiece of a (dead) fig tree, possibly the fig tree that Manrique first saw when he discovered the place. This bubble has seat cushions decorated in red vinyl and a striking statue of a man and a woman. The staircase which connects this bubble to the upper floor gives access to the main living room
Following the passage through to the garden, you can glimpse the shower room to your right, then you are outside, in the sunken garden you will have glimpsed from upstairs, with its dazzlingly turquoise swimming pool. The garden is compact but beautifully finished and encompasses a lovely seating area near the barbecue, a pathway laid out with large volcanic slabs and a bridge over the pool.
Walking through the garden you reach another passage way, which is partly open and communicates with yet another bubble room, this time with a live fig tree growing in the middle. This is the largest bubble apart from the garden and is decorated in a similar style to the others. The stairs leading out of this bubble take you directly into what was Manrique’s studio, and is now the gallery where most of his art work is shown in a standing exhibition.
On leaving the studio you are once more outside and a series of steps take you up to a more formally planted garden with another fountain and the most stunning aspect of this garden is the large mural on the wall, created out of broken tiles.
Today, Manrique’s house appears to be very 1970’s to the eyes of many visitors: but at the time it was considered very progressive and outlandishly futuristic. Unsurprisingly, the house remains just as popular today, welcoming on average some 300,000 visitors a year.
