research costa teguise for windmill & rusty thing on prom
CÉSAR MANRIQUE
The first piece of Manrique work you will probably encounter is whilst
waiting for transfer from the airport.

César Manrique (24 April 1919 - 25 September 1992) was a Spanish artist,
sculptor, architect and activist from Lanzarote.
Manrique was born in Arrecife. He fought in the Spanish Civil War as a
volunteer in the artillery unit on Franco's side, the Republicans. He attended the
University of La Laguna to study architecture, but after two years he quit
his studies.
He moved to Madrid in 1945 and received a scholarship for the Art School of
San Fernando, where he graduated as a teacher of art and painting.
Between 1964 and 1966 he lived in New York City, where a grant from Nelson
Rockefeller allowed him to rent his own studio. He painted many works in New York, which were exhibited in the prestigious
"Catherine Viviano" gallery.
Manrique returned to Lanzarote in 1966. His legacy on the island is shown
below.
He had a major influence on the planning regulations on Lanzarote following
his recognition of its potential for tourism and lobbied successfully
to encourage the sustainable development of the industry. One aspect of this
is the lack of high rise hotels on the island. Those that are there
are in generally keeping with the use of traditional colours in their
exterior decoration.
Manrique died in a car accident at Tahíche, Teguise, very near the Fundación,
his Lanzarote home, in 1992. He was aged 72.
Manriques grave at Haría Cemeterio
Casa / Museo César Manrique (Manrique's house and artist studio in Haria,
with landscaped garden).
The César Manrique House Museum is located in picturesque Haria. In Haría, the artist found the quietude and
harmony with nature that he had always pursued.
In early 1986, he began to build his new home, re-using and adapting a
run-down farmhouse sited on farmland he had purchased
in the 1970's.
He lived here until his death in 1992.
In 2013 the
house was opened to the public as a home and museum.
Visitors are afforded a view of the rooms and the studio where the painter
worked and lived during the last few years of his life.
Two courtyards introduce the visitor to a surprising world of personal
belongings, utensils, objects found by chance and
handcrafted accessories that Manrique turned to an aesthetic purpose. The studio is in a separate
building where the artist painted daily, surrounded by oils, tables laden
with drawings, easels and unfinished paintings.
It
has been conserved just as he left it when he died.
Jardín de Cactus was the last intervention work César Manrique
performed in Lanzarote. He could see beyond how run down the ancient roferas
(quarries) were so he created a home for cactaceae flowers from all
over he world.
Surrounded by the largest cactus plantation of the island, dedicated to
crops of cochineal insect, a product of great financial relevance in
Lanzarote in the 19th Century. Jardín de Cactus has around 4,500 specimens
of 450 different species, of 13 different families of cactus from the five
continents.
At the top, on a small hill, windmills can be seen on the horizon, still
standing, where Canarian cornmeal was ground dating
back to the 19th Century.
Juguetes del viento, another wind
sculpture, built in 1992 in Arrieta.
FOBOS, one of his wind sculptures on
the roundabout where he died -a memorial
lies in the middle of
roundabout and a replica exists on a roundabout on the GC20 just south of Arucas, Gran Canaria,
left.
Lagomar museum - Originally conceived by César Manrique and designed
by the artist Jesús Soto for the British developer Sam Benady with an
architectural vision which could evoke mental imagery from the arabian
nights mythology. In the early 1970s actor Omar Sharif came to Lanzarote to
film “The Mysterious Island”, he visited LagOmar, fell in love with it and
bought it.
Benady knowing Sharif’s reputation as a card player challenged him to a
game of Bridge. Sharif accepted the challenge, not realizing that Benady was
also a champion Bridge player, and allegedly lost the house.
In 1989 architects Dominik von Boettinger from Germany and Beatriz van Hoff
from Uruguay bought the house and initiated the last phase of development.
Both at Fundacion in Tahiche - (Energy of the pyramids) &
possibly
juego de aire
The Casa-Museo del Campesino and Monument to Fertility is located on a
crossing in Mozaga.The sculpture Fertility is dedicated to the local farmer.
La Casa-Museo del Campesino semicircular ground is found around an open
central plaza. Inside, there are objects and tools related to the insular
culture
and agriculture of the island.
The
Timanfaya devil sign and El diablo
Restaurant with its interesting barbeque that uses geothermal heat and a
cast iron grill placed over a hole in the ground – another ingenious César
Manrique idea.
Staff members also give impressive demonstrations which show the intense
heat of the earth just below the surface... watch out for the flames!
International Museum of Contemporary Arts in the Castillo de San José,
Arrecife.
César
Manrique convinced
the authorities of the island to transform the ancient fortress,
which is on the sea-front at Arrecife,
into an art gallery and
it opened
in 1976.
It
was built between 1776 and 1779 under the mandate of King Charles III. Its
advantageous location on top of a cliff, was an added asset to the powerful
Castle of San Gabriel, and made it an essential spot to defend Arrecife from
and its port against the threat of modern states in conflict with the
Spanish Empire.
The Red Room
The Gran Melia Salinas was one of the first hotels built on the island and
was designed to spearhead the birth of Costa
Teguise as a tourist resort.
In 1977 Manrique was invited to design the hotel's incredible, internal
open-air garden and exterior pool areas and a few Manrique artworks
Located on the roundabout of the road from Tías to San Bartolomé, where you
turn off for Montaña Blanca, another of his wind sculptures.
The César Manrique foundation was set
up in 1982 by César Manrique and a group of friends but wasn't officially
opened until 1992 after Manrique died. The foundation, based at Manrique's
home, following his move to a townhouse in the North of the Island (see
below), is a private, non-profit organisation set-up to allow tourists
access to Manrique's home. The foundation is also an art-gallery featuring
art created by Manrique himself as well as Art that he acquired during his
life. The gallery includes original sketches by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró.
The money the foundation takes from ticket sales goes toward raising
awareness about the art of Lanzarote, as well as being used to fund the
foundation's "artistic, cultural and environmental activities".
One of the foundation's fundamental missions is to oppose the spread of
high-rise concrete across the Spanish coastline and her island. The
foundation recently brought attention to 24 illegally erected hotels in
Lanzarote.
Manrique's home itself is built within a 3,000 m2 lot, on the site of the
Lanzarote eruptions in the 18th century, and was created upon Manrique's
return from New York City in 1966. The rooms on the first floor, including
the artist studios, were created with the intention of keeping with
Lanzarote
traditions, yet making them more modern.
The "ground floor", more appropriately titled the "basement", contains five
areas situated within volcanic bubbles, the rooms bored into volcanic
basalt. There is a central cave which houses a recreational area,
including a swimming pool, a barbecue and a small dance floor.
Once outside the main house, the visitor comes to the outside area, where
there is a small square with a fountain in the middle before approaching
a small café area and the visitor shop. This area was once César Manrique's
garage.
Not Manrique related, but we found
this story enchanting when we went there !
The Doll’s House, Casa Juanita or The Blue House's
story is a sad one. This curious building is situated in Arrieta (can't be
missed) and
was built by Don Juan de Leon Perdomo in 1916, a local from Arrieta, before
he emigrated to Argentina in the early 20th century. He made his fortune
there selling wheat and met and married Juana Alemán. The couple had a
daughter in 1904, and they named her after her mother, although she was
always known as Juanita.
Juanita contracted tuberculosis when she was a few years old, and the
couple’s doctor advised moving somewhere with “good air,” ideally by the
ocean. They decided to move back to Arrieta in 1915, and Juan commissioned
the build of a house, modelled on Juanita’s dolls house.
Once completed, they named the house Chalet de Arrieta and moved in. Juanita
had five happy years there, before succumbing to her illness in 1921.
The house gradually fell into disrepair after Juan and Juana died, but it
was eventually restored in the 2000’s.
It is owned by a family from Arrecife, who let it as a holiday home.
Jameos del Agua is a series of lava caves in northern Lanzarote and an
art, culture and tourism center, created by
Manrique, and managed by the government of Lanzarote. It consists of a
subterranean salt lake, restaurant, gardens,
emerald-green pool,museum and auditorium.
Both Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes are located inside the volcanic
tube, created by the eruption
of the Monte Corona volcano. The tube is 6 km long, of which at least 1.5 km
is located below sea surface, and is therefore
called “Tunnel of Atlantis”. Situated in the tunnel’s closest section to the
coast, Jameos del Agua comprises at least three
holes or caves, namely:
Jameo Chico,
Jameo Grande and
Jameo Cazuela
Manrique's idea was
to offer visitors a place to contemplate a natural attraction formed nearly
without human intervention. It’s the first center
of art, culture and tourism created by Manrique. Restoration and cleaning of the abandoned site was
necessary in the early sixties. Despite delays over
the course of time, the year 1966 marked the opening of the first public
areas. The initial project underwent multiple changes
due to the volcanic tube’s special morphology. After completion of Jameos del Agua’s general structure in 1977,
the center was officially opened, including the
auditorium. Afterwards however, new facilities were added for specific
purposes, such as the museum, called
“Casa de los Volcanes”. Since 1987, the center is devoted to science and
volcanology.
Jameos del Agua is ecologically important as it is home to a unique and
endemic species of squat lobster: The blind lobster
Munidopsis polymorpha, a yellow-white and blind crustacean that is hardly
one centimeter in length. These squat lobsters are
very sensitive to changes in the lagoon (derived from sea water), including
effects regarding noise and light. They are also
very sensitive to oxide, which can even kill them, and therefore, it is
forbidden to throw coins in the water.
Monte Corona is a natural monument, and it was identified as a site of
scientific interest on 19 December 1994. It’s also
considered as an ecologically fragile area.
El triunfador (built in 1990 in the area of Fundacion César Manrique, a
sculpture).
The César Manrique foundation













The Mirador del Rio is 400 metres
above sea level on the Risco de Famara. It is located near the remains of an ancient military base
that dates back to the end of the 19th Century. It is camouflaged on the
rock in a way in which only a genius of Manrique’s magnitude could conceive.
The Mirador takes over El Río, the narrow stretch of the sea separating
Lanzarote from La Graciosa. Although unassuming on the outside, the inside
hides surprising details and impressive glass windows, the eyes of El
Mirador. From the atalaya, visitors may watch the eighth
Canary Island, La Graciosa, and the group of islets part of the Chinijo
Islands National Park. At the bottom of the cliff, the reddish shades of the
salinas del Rio stand out, also known as Guza, the oldest ones on the Canary
Islands. Architect Eduardo Cáceres and artist Jesús Soto collaborated in
the creation of El Mirador, which was quite outstanding taking into
consideration that there were scarce means, and the terrain had to be dug
and the building later had to be covered with volcanic rock.
