The undulating Texas Hill Country plains overflow with architecture of Mediterranean stylebut it was the highlands of another famous place that provided a more accurate inspiration for a family house just built in Austin, which is not the typical historical restart.
«Before starting this project, some time had passed in England watching Oliver Hill's work,» says San Antonio Michael G. Imit, who was impressed by the anthem of Arts and Crafts architect to the Alhambra de Marylands, the farm that Hill built in Surrey in the 1930s. «His vision of the Spanish Renaissance style is very different from the one we have here in the United States. He had a fresh look on the materiality and shape of the shapes and masses. «
That interpretation of Mediterranean style It makes a lot of sense in Austin, where architecture is more contemporary and less inspired by the mission than in San Antonio, the hometown of Imber. In collaboration with the interior designer Vanessa Alexander and the construction company Dalgleish, she conceived a sequence of U -shaped spaces that surround a central courtyard and seem to have been carved in the landscape, creating volumes at the same time intimate and great throughout the house. «It is not about being ornamental,» says Iber on the soft fluidity between the interior and exterior spaces, which include a traditional viewpoint with a view to the city and beyond. «There is a more humanistic and sculptural approach.»
Accentuating artisanal aesthetics was also the intention of Alexander, who tried to soften and modernize some of the classic interior elements of architecture to reflect the preference of the owners by a more relaxed lifestyle even before starting the construction of this house Mediterranean style. For his part, Alexander was inspired by the simplicity of the forms of historical Masías and Cuevas de Apulia. «There is an authenticity in the context of these heavy and hand -carved materials that are not manipulated excessively, allowing space to breathe and be strongly light and youthful,» he explains.