Utzon, (the architect of the famed Sydney Opera House in Australia) one of
the first part-time foreign residents of Mallorca, fell in love with the stone’s
natural beauty. In 1972 he hired a local master builder to construct a flat and
open house upon a ledge on the island’s south coast and named it after
his wife. “Can Lis” (Lis’ home) lays hidden between myrtles and pines and
symbolizes the modernisation of a material whose qualities had only been
appreciated by Majorca’s masons for centuries but which never found its
way into contemporary architecture because of its association with rural and
vernacular construction.
Can Lis consists of contiguous pavilions whose usage varies depending on
time of day and changing daylight. The view over the sea was the most
important aspect of the building’s architecture. The huge windows attached
from outside blur limits between inside and outside and provide the house
24 hour a day light. Utzon had planned “Can Lis” as a place for leisure and
recreation after the difficult construction of the Opera House in Sydney.
However, in spite of its beauty his Marés house in the Mediterranean Sea
would not offer him the anticipated peace and quiet: architects from all
over the world came in droves to admire the small house in the green, and
even though the untreated natural stone gleamed wonderfully golden in
the setting sun, it turned out to be quite disagreeable at times as it soaked
up the surrounding humidity like a sponge. This is because of the simple
fact that Mallorca is an island and even during the hot summer months
there is always a high level of humidity. Thus Utzons house turned out to
be not only permeable to light but also to this dreaded humidity. In 1994
the Utzon’s moved away from the humid coast and built a new house,
in the mountains of the hinterland. Although this new house “Can Feliz”
(Joyful house) was also made with Marés, Utzon took into consideration the
experience of the Mallorcan master builders and sealed the stones but did
not plaster the blocks.
MARÉS IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
Other architects followed Utzon and they developed in the 80s new
technologies to construct modern houses with the blocks that came in
the standard format of 80 by 40 by 20 centimeters. Guillem Oliver Sunyer
and Neus García Inyesta, local Mallorcan architects, for example, during
more than 30 years of activity built a number of residential houses from
natural limestone and sandstone. Most of these were seco