There is a popular belief in Lanzarote, instilled in tourism, which says: CesarManrique was the first to spread and impose the idea that in order for the conejeros towns to look beautiful and match with ...
There is a popular belief in Lanzarote, instilled in tourism, which says: Cesar
Manrique was the first to spread and impose the idea that in order for the
conejeros towns to look beautiful and match the nature of our
volcanoes and soil, we should paint the houses white and their doors and windows
green. (This statement is not true).
If we go back to the past years,
more or less, 1430-1850; in Lanzarote there were no hardware stores, but there were warehouses where
construction materials (imported) were sold, such as wood, tar, nails,
hinges, latches, locks, lime, brooms, porrones, hand tools, etc.,
rudimentary.
From the beginning of the era of making shore wafers
and fishing sailboats, approx. year 1888, time when other utensils were needed
for the construction of boats, he started the hardware store business. The ships
that were made in Lanzarote for small or deep-sea fishing were all painted
with almost the same paints and the same colors: white was used and is still used,
more than others, green, more than others, black, blue and yellow;
also dark varnish. (Lime was used to whitewash the exteriors and interiors of
the houses, and plastic paint arrived in Lanzarote in approx. 1965.
With
these few classes of oil paints available for sale, when a boat arrived
from the African coast, after a fishing period of three or six months, the
sailors beached it on a beach, repaired it and gave it a coat or two of
paint.
Once in a while, or several times, the fishermen (called "coastal")
while they were painting, they stole a brush and some paint to paint
the doors and windows of their houses, other times when they had money they bought them.
That's how, due to what was available in the market and due to lack of money, the doors and
windows of the houses in Lanzarote became mostly painted green.
Another point to remember: the doors and windows of the houses in our land,
were rarely painted with pure paint, most were covered with half petroleum
mixed with half paint, that is why the old doors have
lasted so many years; cause: paint with petroleum, does not shell, it seeps into
the wood and protects it from parasites.
P.D. Cesar Manrique did not impose a painting rule
of the houses, but he did say several times, and very clearly: We must build a model
of tourist infrastructure based on a human-nature symbiosis.
Hats off to you friend Cesar, for the Great Work you left us.