The César Manrique Foundation (FCM) will inaugurate the exhibition Lanzarote. Unpublished Architecture next Thursday, November 21st. This is a tribute to the homonymous book, made by César Manrique in 1974, whose appearance celebrates 50 years.
The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Taro room, located at the Institution's headquarters (Taro de Tahíche), and will be followed by a cocktail in the Foundation's gardens, with music by Checha Tambo Dj. Admission is free, with no prior reservation required.
The exhibition, of a documentary nature, is curated and designed by the director of the FCM, Fernando Gómez Aguilera, and produced and organized by the Institution. It will exhibit 111 photographic reproductions of the publication, three recreations of symbolic architectural elements of the island such as a dovecote, an oven and the wall of an old house, seven original drawings by César Manrique, eight unpublished photographs and eleven originals of traditional architecture (from the artist's personal archive), nineteen fragments of texts from the book that accompany the images, documents such as letters, or newspaper articles and objects related to the realization of the book, among other contents.
In addition to the exhibition, which can be visited until September 1, 2025, the FCM has launched other initiatives associated with this anniversary such as the development of a pedagogical campaign that aims to disseminate the central message of the publication among schoolchildren on the island, the organization of a round table on vernacular architecture or commemorative editions. The reprinting of the book Lanzarote. Unpublished Architecture occupies a special place in the celebration of this fiftieth anniversary.
This new edition is faithful to the first (1974) and its commemorative character is underlined as it is accompanied by a special box and a band with a drawing by César Manrique. The publication, edited by the Institution's Publications Service, as well as two sheets with drawings on popular architecture that were made by César Manrique in 1967 for the interior of the book, can be purchased in the FCM's bookstore.
Lanzarote. Unpublished Architecture represents one of César Manrique's most relevant contributions. Among other things, it was an extraordinary milestone in the process of shaping the new landscapes of Lanzarote that emerged in the context of the tourism industry. It also had consequences on urban planning practices and regulations that ended up shaping the current identity of Lanzarote. Rarely has a book had so much material and symbolic influence on the life of a community.
"Conceived by the artist as a tool for a broader task of collective awareness, the book also symbolizes an instrument of struggle against the devastation of the uniqueness of the landscape, of the primitive architectural personality of the territory and, ultimately, of the originality of the autochthonous culture," explains the curator of the exhibition.
Lanzarote. Unpublished Architecture is Manrique's tribute to the essential Lanzarote, in which the artist worked for seven years under an idea that always remained unchanged: to gather a repertoire of photographs that reflected the characteristics and variety of the island's vernacular architecture to avoid its disappearance and turn it into a reference model for new constructions, thus avoiding the introduction of foreign models and the standardization of Lanzarote's architectural landscape.
