Raúl Sánchez Architects splashes old sailor's home in Spain with modern details
Spanish practice Raúl Sánchez Architects has renovated a home in Mataro, Spain, which belonged to a sailor in the 19th century, updating its interiors to suit the lifestyle of his descendant who lives there now.
The property was originally two separate dwellings that were merged in 1865 by sailor Antoni Cuyas, who wanted to pass the remaining years of his life in his native Mataro, after spending decades away at sea and doing business in South America.
After Cuyas's death, the house remained under the ownership of his family and, since 2012, has been occupied by the sailor's great-great-grandson Manuel Cuyas and his wife Nuria.
The pair approached Raúl Sánchez Architects to update the house because they'd increasingly come to feel as if they were "living in spaces trapped in a distorted past"; it was also proving difficult for both of them to work from home.
They asked the practice to focus on renovating three spaces: the entrance hall, the dining room and the living area.
"The requirements were simple: to be able to fully enjoy all the spaces, to use the room both as a living room and a workspace, to keep the dining room exclusively for dining, to give the entrance hall a meaningful role within the ensemble, and to restore some of the badly mistreated grandeur the house once possessed," the practice said.
In the living area, the practice has built a stainless steel platform along the room's rear wall. The platform angles outward at both ends to form a pair of desks, and then juts inward to accommodate a built-in sofa.
Storage drawers were also incorporated into the platform, each fronted by natural stone knobs.
The living area's original ceiling, wallpaper and patterned terracotta-tile floor were preserved, although the latter had to be treated with resin to minimise future wear and tear.
More standard tiling that ran around the room's perimeter was removed and replaced with white micromortar to form a starkly contrasting border.
Several paintings are mounted across the walls, the main one being a gold-framed portrait of Antoni Cuyas. Just opposite, the practice has erected a tall mirrored TV cabinet.
Its interior was painted yellow to match the living area's bespoke coffee table.
French doors lead through to the home's dining room, where Raúl Sánchez Architects has laid dark oak flooring to complement the existing decorative wainscotting that runs around the edge of the space.
More modern elements were added too – stainless steel shelves to accommodate the owners' extensive book collection and a glossy red edition of Italian designer Carlo Scarpa's Orseolo table.
A discrete climate control system helps to keep the spaces cool.
"The considerable technical complexity of the intervention ultimately recedes, allowing the room to recover its former splendour – not as a museum piece anchored to an idealised past that most often never existed, but as a space that acknowledges its past and history while carrying them into the present," the practice explained.
Finally, in the entrance hall, any later additions that were discordant with the home's period features were stripped away, and surfaces were painted an impactful shade of vermillion red.
One of Antoni Cuyas' swords was also put on display in a glass case.
Other recent residential projects by Raúl Sánchez Architects include Casa Magarola, a blocky home near Barcelona that has a burnt-orange facade, and House in Cala Tamarit, a concrete dwelling that's orientated around a dramatic double-height living space.
The photography is by José Hevia.
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