Mr Davies' House

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1920-1925 · Authors: Laureano de Armas

This detached house was designed and built [by Laureano de Armas Gourié] between 1920 and 1925 for the family of Mr Davies, manager of the Blandy-Brothers company and close relative of Mr Blandy, who provided the land.

The building is a genuine exercise in a stately home. It was the first house entirely designed by Laureano de Armas.

Overall, it stands out as a construction with a will to permanence, of great solidity, also reflected in the treatment of the exterior skin. This external skin is pierced, decorated, and protected with highly durable materials. The basic decorative material is stone, ashlar, well-carved ashlar, roughly hewn rubble masonry, all placed or bonded with a mortar-type binder of lime and coarse sand, leaving very wide joints without paint or other treatment.

The distant reading of the building reminds us of medieval architecture, where the battlements of the towers disappear and are replaced by harmless roofs. The entire exterior envelope is full of gestures alluding to medieval Romanesque architecture, without forgetting the classic English and French volume plays that impose the appearance of small palaces.

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