LA ALMAZARA

‘LA Almazara is an extraordinary, incredible and miraculous place in which visitors enjoy a powerful, radical experience that challenges and transforms. It is an accumulation of mysteries where the crystallised respect of olive oil is mixed with emotion’. Ph.S

For LA Almazara in Ronda, Philippe Starck imagined a minimal and timeless design, with no superfluous details, no cladding, just the essentials worked with rigour and clarity. A monolithic red cube, with an immense bull's horn in steel a gigantic eye cast in concrete spewing black smoke. Why? Why not. An eye to illustrate the vigilance of the great Andalusian surrealist artists, the smoke as a thought as a look.

Inside there are also fertile surprises and clear homages. A monumental half olive is embedded in the rusted steel wall. A metal pipe penetrates the building without ever coming out. Running water. A huge figure without a head or identity, but with a plane made entirely of pieces and yet one of the first to fly. Bits of wood. A giant bullfighting sword and an equally enormous portrait of its inventor-matador from Ronda.

The interior shadow is suddenly dazzled by a rectangle of light that extends onto a terrace suspended by huge metal chains. This opening to the exterior becomes a frame for the mythical and dramatic image of the landscapes of Ronda and Andalusia. Nature is not only preserved but extended. Olive trees planted, and only a few alleys, groves and green alcoves wander in a romantic journey through the plantation.