Emilio Ambasz: Retiro Espiritual

Just found this fantastic video of Retiro Espiritual. One of the most unique projects that I can think of. I found an essay by Peter Buchanan which I have included at the bottom of this post as a downloadable Word file. Here is an excerpt from it...

"This is a house that is unique in every way, yet it is full of familiar, particularly local, resonances. Some may see Andalusian precedent in the whitewashed mountain dwellings of gypsy troglodytes. But even more relevant are earlier Arabic and Moorish precursors, from which derive the patio form and carved wood vocabulary. The house’s languid, dreamy, and contemplative atmosphere, even as it juts out mysteriously from the earth, recalls stories of the Alhambra (in whose gardens there are also stairs with water channels in the balustrades, although Ambasz only discovered these long after the house was originally conceived)."

Peter Buchanan Essay: Retrato