Un erizo sin púas. La casa subterránea de Fernando Higueras. Influencias de César Manrique, la isla de Lanzarote, y la arquitectura anónima española

The underground house (1973-1975) by Fernando Higueras is an autobiographical project. The architect’s life and professional experience come together in an unique project that, however, cannot be considered an exception in his career but a synthesis of his architectural thinking. The underground architecture, or half-underground, was already part of the architecture of the master plan of Playa Blanca (1963) in Lanzarote, as well as the landscaped patio, the light coming from a skylight, the stairs as a possible source of natural light, the construction order or the technique (especially prefabrication). All of them are architectural invariants developed by Higueras at the beginning of his career and before the underground house design. Among these initial projects, there are the competition for the building of artistic restorations (1961), the Lucio Muñoz house (1962), the atomic shelter -underground- of the Arche house (1962-1963), the Wutrich house (1962) -in Lanzarote- or the Camorritos house (1962) in Cercedilla (Madrid) that Higueras designed for César Manrique. The personal and professional bond between the architect and the artist would be decisive for the work of both. This personal relationship, Higueras’ first projects and the architect’s interest in vernacular architecture (his participation in the publication Villages and Towns was essential) reveal the origin of the decisions in the in the underground house. In this sense, Manrique’s return of to Lanzarote in 1968 is key since the artist materialises in his house project a fantasy dreamed during his childhood: “I want to repeat my special adventures inside the lava”. Near Teguise, Manrique chose a torrent of lava created by volcanic eruptions in 1730 to locate his partially-underground studio-home. This underground condition was a suggestion of Fernando Higueras and Pedro Massieu, as the latter stated. Higueras, following the commission of urban and architectural studies in the south of the Lanzarote, had already visited Island in 1963 in the company of Manrique. The knowledge of the place increased during the collaboration for the book Lanzarote, arquitectura inédita [Lanzarote, unpublished architecture] (1974) led by Manrique. Higueras contributed to the book with a text “Notes on an Island” citing the Ciudad de las Gaviotas project (1970) in the Risco de Famara, in which he uses the term “rascainfiernos” (“hellscraper”) to describe the connection between different levels of excavated gardens and the base of the Risco. In the same text, Higueras refers to the value of Manrique’s projects (among them the artist’s house), emphasising that “they do not disturb the virgin nature of the island” due to the fact that they are “sunk in the ground”. In relation with the “natural” language, Alberto Humanes Bustamante refers to the work of Higueras as a “sea urchin architecture” that gives rise to “buildings with an important outer shell and a soft interior.” In the underground house, the sea urchin loses its spines, like the inhabited caves that Higueras studied in southern Spain, and only five strategically placed skylights and an external staircase reveal the existence of an interior world.