House for a Photographer - Delta de l'Ebre

A plot of land perpendicular to the sea, 250m long and 18m wide. The plot, an area under cultivation, runs from the beach to a top end with a few old ruins, bamboo and lemon trees. The house 2 for a photographer is sited at the end of the plot. Built on a platform raised 70 cm above the floodable natural terrain, three small volumes, of irregular shape in plan and section, strike up a dialogue across an empty space with long sightlines. A stand of sixty washingtonia palm trees conducts us from the beach to the house. The volumetric decomposition responds to the landscape and constructional conditions, and to those of a light that suggests a Picasso picture painted in the area, now in the muse Picasso in Paris. The central void is turned into the house's principal space, a tense space geometrically defined in its upper area by the tall opaque bodies of the different pavilions. Up to a height of 2.10m, the ground plane, however, is an uninterrupted spot that brings the different interior spaces in shadow into a rapport with the sea views, the plant background and the living areas on the platform. The fragmented play of volumes reminds us of Picasso's Cubist composition. The chiaroscuro and intense light of this part of the Mediterranean balance the plenitude of the topography of the delta as whole.

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