The island of Lanzarote has become one of the favourite tourism destinations in the Canary
Islands over the last few decades. However our interest is more one of artistic than of
touristic discovery and this would be virtually unthinkable without the work of an artist who
fell in love with this wonderful paradise. We refer to César Manrique (1919-1992) who was able
to see and reveal to us the unique beauties arising out of the happy marriage of the four
elements believed by the Greeks to form the whole of creation: air earth fire and water. In
fact after returning to his island in 1968 after a period spent in New York Manrique
dedicated himself passionately to realizing his utopia to renew Lanzarote out of his own
sources. Among Manriques best known works on Lanzarote are the Casa Museo del Campesino the
Jameos del Agua the Mirador del Río the Cactus Garden and his own house in the Taro de
Tahíche. Manrique's house in Taro de Tahíche which nowadays houses the César Manrique
Foundation can be considered as a »work in progress« as it was built over a period of almost
25 years and was still not completed upon the artist's death. Arising out of the five
interconnected volcanic bubbles of the underground storey it has become a metaphor for the
amorous meeting of man with Mother Earth this latter being understood to use Bruno Taut's
expression as »a fine home for living«. The spaces on the upper floor can be virtually
mistaken for the white cubic buildings dispersed throughout the island. But when we cross their
thresholds we have the unique feeling that here something was created which is really new. In
fact Manrique - enemy in equal measure of the »pastiche« of regionalism and the off-key
International Style blind to differentiation - sifted the vernacular with certain modern
filters such as Frank Lloyd Wright Mies van der Rohe or Le Corbusier and at the same time
gave it such a specific stamp that the final result became indigenous and unmistakeable. Simón
Marchán Fiz is professor of aesthetics in Madrid. Like Marchán Fiz Pedro Martinez de Albornoz
lives in Madrid. The photographs shown in this book are the best photographic interpretation of
one of Manrique's work up to now.
