Alberto Campo Baeza, in collaboration with Modesto Sánchez Morales, has completed a house in Mojácar, a Spanish municipality located in the Levante Almeriense region, and 90 km from the provincial capital, Almería.

For ten years Mojácar has been part of the network of the most beautiful villages in Spain. According to an urban legend, Walt Disney would not have been born in Chicago, but in Mojácar (Almería), the illegitimate son of a doctor and a washerwoman, with the name of José Guirao Zamora.
Alberto Campo Baeza's design, in collaboration with Modesto Sánchez Morales, is located on the eastern slope of a rectangular plot with an east-west orientation, in the middle of the dense urban area of the city. The project displays a set of staggered white volumes that face the Mediterranean.

The house unfolds in four heights according to a "cascade of volumes", adjusting its heights in a friendly dialogue with its neighbors so that, even when able, it does not cover the views of its upper neighbor. Outside, a set of terraced spaces finished in white lime and white limestone.

The interior takes advantage of the staggering to create a double-height space, in which openings are carefully opened to catch the light and manage its incidence in the interior.
 
"The work has been long and confirms the assertion that the greatest virtue that an architect must have today is patience."


House in Mojácar by Alberto Campo Baeza + Modesto Sánchez Morales. Photograph by Javier Callejas.

 House in Mojácar by Alberto Campo Baeza + Modesto Sánchez Morales. Photograph by Javier Callejas.
 

Project description by Alberto Campo Baeza + Modesto Sánchez Morales

After four years of intense work, we finished the construction of a house in Mojácar. And to top it off, Javier Callejas, our architect, and photographer, has taken a beautiful photo report that captures the spirit that beats there very well.

The house tries to bring to life the spirit that Roberto Puig planted there in his day: a Mediterranean village stepped in a beautiful cascade of white volumes facing the sea. This is precisely what our house does.

It is a steep plot, like all of them, between two stepped buildings, like all of them. And complying punctually with the existing regulations. Once again, we wanted to build the most beautiful architecture possible here.

Our construction also stepped on the four existing levels between the two streets, the upper and the lower one. On the upper street, we only build one floor, although the regulations allow us to build two, so as not to obstruct the views of the neighbor behind. On the lower street, we logically unify the first two levels.


House in Mojácar by Alberto Campo Baeza + Modesto Sánchez Morales. Photograph by Javier Callejas.

In our "cascade of volumes," two terrace platforms appear, which open onto the corresponding rooms. The terrace railings have the height of a table and offer a generous horizontal surface, finished in resistant white limestone. Everything is painted white with lime, and the floors of all the terraces are made of white limestone. From the outside, from the sea, this new house looks like another piece of the village.

The interior is dominated by a double-height vertical space, well-proportioned. In it, we open gaps that, like traps, collect the sunlight that penetrates there in a wonderful symphony. Nothing more and nothing less.

The work has been long and confirms the assertion that the greatest virtue an architect must have today is patience.

More information

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Architects
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Alberto Campo Baeza with Modesto Sánchez Morales.
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Project team Equipo de proyecto
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Alejandro Cervilla García, Ignacio Aguirre López, Tommaso Campiotti, Alfonso Guajardo-Fajardo Cruz, María Pérez de Camino Díez, Sara Fernández de Trucios, Joan Suñé, David Vera García.
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Collaborators
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Structural Engineer.- Andrés Rubio Morán.
Engineering.- Francisco Armesto.
Construction Manager.- Manuela García.
Quality Control.- WHS S.L, ICOM, Evintes.
Quantity surveyor.- José Manuel Lobo Rull.
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Client
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José Luís González Martínez.
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Contractor
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Grupo Albaida (Manuela García, site manager).
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Area
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350sqm.
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Dates
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2018-2022.
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Location
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Mojácar, Spain.
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Photography
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Alberto Campo Baeza. Born in Valladolid (1946), where his grandfather was an architect, from the age of two he lived in CADIZ where he saw the LIGHT. From his father he inherited a spirit of ANALYSIS and from his mother the determination to be an ARCHITECT.

He lives in Madrid, where he moved to study Architecture. His first professor was Alejandro de la Sota, who instilled in him the ESSENTIAL architecture that he is still trying to erect. He is a PROFESSOR at the Madrid School of Architecture, ETSAM, where he has been a tenured professor for more than 25 years.

He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And in Dublin and Naples, Virginia and Copenhagen. And at the BAUHAUS in Weimar and at Kansas State University. He spent a year as a research fellow at COLUMBIA University in New York in 2001 and again in 2011. He has given many lectures and has received many awards like the TORROJA for his Caja Granada building. And he was awarded the Buenos Aires Biennial 2009 for his Nursery for Benetton in Venice and his MA Museum in Granada. He has recently been nominated by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the prestigious Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of 2010.

His works have been widely recognized. From the single family houses Casa Turégano and Casa de Blas, both in Madrid, to Casa Gaspar, Casa Asencio and Casa Guerrero in Cádiz. And the Olnick Spanu House in Garrison, New York, the Centro BIT in Inca-Mallorca, the Caja de Granada Savings Bank and the MA, the Museum of Andalusian Memory, both in Granada, and a nursery for Benetton in Venice. And Between Cathedrals in Cádiz, and just recently a building for Offices in Zamora (2012). And the construction of the new Offices for Benetton in Samara, Russia, which is about to begin.

And more than 20 editions of a BOOK with his texts “LA IDEA CONSTRUÍDA” [THE BUILT IDEA] have been published in several languages. A fourth edition of “PENSAR CON LAS MANOS”, a second compilation of his writings, has just been published. And just now “PRINCIPIA ARCHITECTONICA”, a collection of his texts written during his sabbatical year at Columbia University in New York in 2011.

He believes in Architecture as a BUILT IDEA. And he believes that the principle components of Architecture are GRAVITY that constructs SPACE and LIGHT that constructs TIME.

He has exhibited his work in the CROWN HALL by Mies at Chicago’s IIT and at the PALLADIO Basilica in Vicenza. And in the Urban Center in New York. And at the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul. In 2009 the prestigious MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo made an anthological exhibition of his work that in 2011 was in the MAXXI in Rome.

Act.>. 04-2012
 

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Published on: July 22, 2023
Cite: "Bathed in the light of the rising sun. House in Mojácar by Alberto Campo Baeza + Modesto Sánchez Morales" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/bathed-light-rising-sun-house-mojacar-alberto-campo-baeza-modesto-sanchez-morales> ISSN 1139-6415
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