Architectural Record 2015-04

LOS LIMONEROS MARBELLA, SPAIN GUS WÜSTEMANN ARCHITECTS 85
from the entrance vestibule on the north to a minimal
kitchen on the south wall—so minimal, in fact, that it is hard
to find the stove (concealed by a movable counter) or other
culinary appurtenances.
Long sliding glass walls open the indoor living spaces to a
patio and a small pond immediately to the east, and to a
grassy lawn and swimming pool to the west. Looking in this
direction, where the house’s receding columns and beams
frame vistas and define the various interior and exterior
areas, you can catch a glimpse of the Sierra Blanca Mountains.
As the spaces unfold, boundaries blur between inside
and out. “We just move the furniture outdoors when it gets
warmer,” says the client on a 65-degree winter’s day. Not all
of it moves, however: Wüstemann has created nooks with
built-in benches and podiums of masonry covered with a
smooth cementitious coating—as integrated with the architecture
as built-ins are in the habitations of Le Corbusier.
Leaving the living area and walking west to the lawn and
garden, you pass through an open court, a spatial void that
is the center of the house. Bound on the four sides of the
second level by expansive grills of slender precast-concrete
brick, the court seems enclosed by modern-day Moorish
mashrabiyas, which filter light into the corridors leading to
the bedrooms, library, and media room. Where the upper
bedroom wing overlooks the lawn, an L-shaped pool, and a
lemon grove, Wüstemann has carved deep niches, much like
the syncopated crenellations of a medieval fort, to provide
secluded sunporches for the occupants and guests.
In boiling down the elements of both historic and modern
motifs to their essentials, Wüstemann avoids obvious replications
of any particular style. His unremitting approach to
clean details reveals his architectural training at Zurich’s
rigorous Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Yet the fact
that he has offices in Barcelona as well as Zurich explains
his more casual Mediterranean sensibility and underlies the
house’s subtle combination of control and la buena vida. ■
FROM THE TERRACE
Private open spaces
abound. An upperlevel
terrace connects
the master bath
(above) to the master
bedroom (not shown)
and frames the view
to the east.