Because of the multi-talented surrealist Cesar Manrique, Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, is a major art destination for sculpture and exciting modern architecture.

Cesar Manrique’s roots in Lanzarote’s volcanic landscape not only shaped his artistic vision, but brought him home to save the island from the high-rise-encrusted fate of so many other beach-lined “islands in the sun.” Instead, its architecture is a pleasing blend of traditional white stucco homes, well-designed bungalows that climb the hillsides like sculptured stairs, and a scattering of attractive multi-story hotels.

After becoming a major figure in Spanish art in Madrid, Manrique moved to New York City in 1963, exhibiting at the Catherine Viviano Gallery. While there he became friends with such major American artists as Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, who added their influences to those of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and other major European artists he had studied.

Returning to Lanzarote in 1968, he set his passion and extraordinary talents to redirecting the future of the island’s tourism, just at its beginnings. Determined to avoid the horrors of bad tourist development he’d seen elsewhere, Manrique set Lanzarote on an environmentally and culturally inspired course. Then, working with the island’s dramatic mountains and ragged lava flows, he used his genius in art and architecture to create exciting wind-activated mobile sculptures, plus seven unique attractions and a stunning hotel complex:

• Jameos del Aqua (Malpais de Corona) transforms a gigantic bubble in the black lava into a semi-underground restaurant with a natural pool and an auditorium.
• Monumento al Campesino (Mozaga) features a huge sculpture, Fertility, and a cultural center where craftsmen can exhibit and demonstrate in studios.
• Taro de Tahiche (Tahiche) was Manrique’s own home, completely built into a partly collapsed lava tube, with dramatic sky-lit rooms and art exhibition space.
• Restaurant El Diablo and Mirador, on top of the volcano Timanfaya, is a restaurant with a panoramic view of the lava fields and a pit where meals are cooked over the natural heat of the live volcano.
• Mirador del Rio, at Lanzarote’s northeast tip, adapts a Spanish-American War gun battery into a scenic overlook atop a plunging cliff.
• Museo International del Arte Contemporáneo (Arrecife) adapts the small fortress, Castillo San Jose, into a gallery of modern art and restaurant overlooking the harbor.
• Jardin de Cactus (Guatiza) fills a gravel pit with a sunken cactus garden, overlooked by walls of lava stone and an historic windmill.
• Las Salinas Hotel (Costa Teguise) is a multi-story hotel surrounding a soaring atrium garden with full-sized palms and a waterfall.

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