Reprieve for Maspalomas

© Lluis Casals

The Cabildo, the island government of Gran Canaria, has suspended the demolition permit for José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún's historic Maspalomas Oasis Hotel (see blog entry of Jan. 12, 2013).

The hotel closed its doors on April 31 in preparation for the demolition, and the owners planned an inversion of 46 million euros.

The move opens the door to a possible process of negotiation between local authorities and the owners that could lead to the restoration of the hotel, according to local architect and historian José Antonio Sosa, with whom I spoke in a telephone interview.

The Cabildo did not extend historic protection to the hotel building, but rather to the entire area around it, encompassing various other buildings and landscape features such as the virgin grove of palms and lush gardens that give the hotel its name. The Cabildo justified its decision citing the historic value of the site, which was where Christopher Columbus anchored in 1502 to gather provisions on his fourth voyage to the Americas.

The move automatically suspends the existing demolition permit and requires the hotel owners to submit any plans for the building to the Cabildo for approval. For its part, the Cabildo will develop a special master plan for the area, a spokesman told the press (El Diario Montanés, April 30, 2013).

Sosa explains that a decision protecting the building itself would have legally hampered the owners in any effort to update facilities such as kitchens and services during a restoration. Preservation legislation here is designed for protecting traditional historic monuments such as cathedrals and palaces, he says. He explains the protection of the landscape encompassing the hotel as a maneuver to accommodate the negotiation process.

Directing protection to the landscape revindicates Corrales and Molezún's original intentions, as their design breaks the building into a series of linked pavilions that are integrated with their unique surroundings.

Update 01.18.17

The Supreme Court of the Canary Islands  upholds decision protecting Maspalomas against appeals by local town council and hotel owners against lower court decision: 

El TSJC ratifica la sentencia que impide a RIU demoler elhotel Oasis y construir uno nuevo 

Canarias Ahora

12.15.2016

Maspalomas Oasis: Noticia en Español

Photo: Francisco Rojas Fariña, circa 1971 From the blog of COAC

Architectural Record has published my news article on the fight to save the Maspalomas Oasis Hotel in the Canary Islands, a masterwork of the 1960s by Madrid architects José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún.

The announcement of the demolition plans was the subject of my last blog on January 12th. It includes photos, plans and descriptions of the project.

Here is a translation of the Record article into Spanish by Federico García Barba:


Los defensores de la arquitectura moderna luchan para salvar un modelo turístico en las Islas Canarias

En la isla de Gran Canaria, una última iniciativa a favor del patrimonio arquitectónico contemporáneo trata de salvar el Maspalomas Oasis Hotel, diseñado por los arquitectos madrileños José Antonio Corrales y Ramón Vázquez Molezún y terminado en 1971. Considerado un modelo de intervención armoniosa sobre el paisaje volcánico único de las Islas Canarias, el proyecto entreteja sus pabellones con jardines y patios, y preserva un oasis virgen de palmeras autóctonas. 
Los propietarios, la cadena hotelera RIU, planean cerrar el hotel en abril y comenzar la demolición, para sustituir el edificio por otro que incrementa su número de habitaciones de 633 a 950. Las autoridades locales han alentado la iniciativa como parte de un plan de renovación de la zona que trata de paliar el envejecimiento de los equipamientos turísticos, otorgando un incentivo consistente en un aumento de la superficie construida permitida de cuatro a cinco plantas. 

El hotel carece actualmente de protección frente a esa posible desaparición, a pesar de que está incluido en el catálogo patrimonial propuesto para la protección de la arquitectura del siglo 20, preparado para el Ministerio de Cultura de España por la Fundación Docomomo Ibérico (Documentación y Conservación de Edificios, Sitios y Barrios del Movimiento Moderno). El hotel data de los inicios del turismo en las islas. Sus autores, Corrales (1921-2010) y Vázquez Molezún (1922-1993), los diseñadores del pabellón español premiado en la Exposición Universal de 1958 en Bruselas, estaban en la cima de sus carreras. Trabajando en el proyecto con el arquitecto local Manuel de la Peña, agruparon pabellones y patios interconectados para crear una red porosa, mezclando espacios interiores y exteriores, que José Antonio Sosa, el historiador de arquitectura local, compara con los contemporáneos "mat-buildings" descritos por Alison Smithson, miembro del Team X. Revistaron el edificio con paneles prefabricados cubiertos con fragmentos de piedra volcánica roja, produciendo una textura "como el corcho", en las palabras de Corrales. 

Pero Sosa señala que el edificio ha sido poco a poco "desfigurado" por muchas renovaciones en el curso del tiempo; lo más grave, sus patios han quedado cubiertos. Quedan solo unas pocas de las ventanas primitivas enmarcadas en madera, mientras los muebles originales, incluyendo sillas diseñadas para el proyecto por los arquitectos, así como pinturas destacables de Manuel Millares, han sido reemplazados. Sosa cree que la cadena hotelera RIU, que compró la propiedad en 1996, "no conocía el estado original del edificio, y ha sido la primera sorprendida por la reacción que la noticia de su demolición ha provocado." 
 
Diversas organizaciones locales, entre las cuales están el Colegio de Arquitectos y la Academia de Bellas Artes, han enviado un manifiesto conjunto al gobierno regional pidiendo la conservación del Hotel Oasis. También lo ha hecho Docomomo Ibérico. El presidente de una cadena competidora ha solicitado al gobierno canario la declaración del hotel como "Bien de Interés Cultural", para que legalmente se exija su estricta conservación. Al mismo tiempo, un periódico local ha montado una campaña en favor de su conservación.

El manifiesto conjunto, que ha sido preparado por Sosa, argumenta a favor de un acuerdo negociado entre los propietarios y el gobierno. Propone que el hotel sea restaurado en su esplendor original. A cambio, los propietarios podrían realizar una ampliación del edificio horizontalmente, ocupando parte de sus extensos terrenos, o agregar edificabilidad a otro de sus propiedades turísticas en la isla. Sosa señala que el valor arquitectónico del diseño debe ser considerado como un elemento positivo en el atractivo del conjunto como destino turístico. Ni RIU ni las autoridades pertenecientes de los gobiernos locales han respondido públicamente a estas peticiones.

Save Corrales & Molezún's Oasis!

© Lluís Casals

During Spain's tourist boom in the 1960's, the Hotel Maspalomas Oasis on the island of Gran Canaria, built by Madrid architects Ramón Vázquez Molezón and José Antonio Corrales, set a model for what resort architecture could have been but rarely was, preserving its spectacular natural setting instead of consuming it.

Now over 40 years old, the complex has been slated for demolition by its owners this spring, as preservationists scramble to try to save it. The hotel is one of 160 works cataloged by the Docomomo Iberia Foundation as part of the Spain's 20th Century Architectural Heritage.

From J.A. Sosa

Here is José Antonio Sosa's description of the project in a guide to modern architecture in the Canary Islands:

"The hotel is located in one of the most beautiful landscapes of the Canary Island's coastline, a natural oasis not far from the Maspalomas Pond that takes advantage of a splendid forest of Phoenix Canariensis....
The architectonic organization of the building takes the privileged situation of this extraordinary natural setting into account. It extends across the site like a network or a carpet (particularly in the first phase), provoking the surprising effect of a porous and varied architectonic space, where patios and gardens (inserted in the building mass) blend into one another, blurring the limits of the operation. As a result, when we arrive at the entry, for example  --markedly horizontal in its proportions-- parts of the building already lie behind us.  And when we think we have finally reached the end of the hotel, in the area of the swimming pool and solarium, much of the building still lies before us. The hotel extends across the site in a continuous play of open and closed, light and shadow, the porous and the solid, colonizing the former palm grove with care and attention,  and thus transforming it into the essential protagonist of the architectonic operation.
The network structure, very much of its time  (Y. Friedmann, Candilis, Josic and Woods, the Smithsons or even Le Corbusier in Venice), is given consistency over its large extension by the brilliant treatment of the facades using prefabricated panels of reddish volcanic stone, very large in size, which find their perfect complement in the large openings of the terraces, the built-in window shades, and the glazed access galleries to the rooms."

Source:  José Antonio Sosa Díaz-Saaverdra, Editor, Arquitectura Moderna en Canarias. 1925 - 1965, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias, Islas Canarias, 2002

© Lluís Casals

And here are José Antonio Corrales' remarks on the project in a lecture he gave in Pamplona in 2000: 

"We received this commission, like many others, through a colleague, in this case Manuel de la Peña, an architect from Las Palmas, who was in contact with the Count of Vegagrande, an important landowner. The name comes from the site behind the Maspalomas Lighthouse, where there was a palm grove and some dunes, like an oasis. The layout is based on linear pavilions of rooms facing the sea and the beach. The most important suites are on the ground floor. The entry is located on a plaza, with the vestibule, the cafeteria and arrival court, and all the living areas are located in this area, on terraced levels around the palm grove, and with stepped ceilings as well to allow natural light to enter; the dining rooms are located on the second floor. There is a kind of park in the palm grove, with a swimming pool, graded seating, and a clubhouse under the seating with a dance floor....
The volcanic rock of the island always surprised us, with its purples, reds and deep blues. For the facades, we decided to make cement panels with volcanic rock set into them. The material is volcanic but broken into small pieces, and they make the hotel look like it is made of cork. The material is fundamental, because it gives the project personality. We used African wood for the carpentry, mixed with some areas in white. One of the features of the rooms looking out to sea is that the ceiling of the terrace is a little higher than the room, and the roll-up shade is not between the terrace and the room, but in front of the terrace, so that when it is lowered the room extends into the terrace. The shade doesn't cut off the room. The ground floor suites have their own terraces.... 
We put abstract paintings by Manuel Millares in the living areas."

Source:José Antonio Corrales, Obra construida, Lecciones / Documentos de Arquitectura 5, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universidad de Navarra, T6 Ediciones, Pamplona, 2000, p 31 -33. Web version available here.

Photos and plans:

Obra construida
Blog, COAC (Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canaria)
Photos by Lluís Casals:  Docomomo web page

Photos by Francisco Rojas Fariña (below):
María Isabel Navarro, Canarias: Arquitecturas desde el siglo XXI. Vol IX, Historia Cultural del Arte en Canarias, 2011. Lent by José Antonio Sosa.

Last two pictures:
Vázquez Molezú Bequest, Historic Archive of the COAM (Official College of Architects of Madrid). Author, unknown; date, circa 1967 - 71.

 Texts translated by DC

From Obra construida

From Obra construida

© Lluís Casals

© Lluís Casals

© Lluís Casals

Photo: Francisco Rojas Fariña, circa 1971 From the blog of COAC.

Photo: Francisco Rojas Fariña

Photo: Francisco Rojas Fariña

Photo: Francisco Rojas Fariña

Source: J. A. Sosa

COAM Archive

COAM Archive