EL RASTRO | BAXTER MARBELLA

MAISON DESIGN

Spain

Creative interaction: here is the definition of this tandem.

For more than 15 years, Graciela Leanza and Javier Martín travel around the world planning, creating and perfecting the projects conceived. Dream makers wherever they go.

The energy they develop, anyway, needs larger spaces and an unhindered flow for their creativity, too. In one of those several trips, they visit the house/studio of the magnificent designer Paola Navone and the flame is lit. Explosion of emotions.

The return home is no longer the search for a conventional space, instead it now becomes necessary to find an iconic building in Marbella, where to best represent that unique team. Where the challenge is always to carry out an idea created in any part of the world and where the limit is set by the client only.

They discover a building in Marbella that would have made the magic sprout without stopping. El Rastro, on the Golden Mile, a historic building of the city where an antiquarian full of stories has been working for decades, collecting unparalleled materials.

While the first layers are removed from the old building and the immense amount of roof tiles, iron, wood, doors and floors is recovered and classified, the most intimate structure of the main unit - called “the barn” - is discovered. A generous space that runs on the highest flooring along the house as if it were a train station.

By removing the layers that have hidden the soul of the structure for so many years, you discover the magnificent wood that imposes all its strength as soon as you enter the space. Everything is to be discovered and preserved in the new concept. Light stone walls, wood and so many noble materials characterize the design applied to the great identity of the main house. The volume of the general structure, somewhat inexpressive but useful in terms of meters and orientation, has been enhanced by making it transparent.

Was it possible to create a uniform language?

Of course it was, by creating a volume that organises the buildings and gives visual continuity. Thus, for the “green cube” a vertical garden was designed, where nature embraces the white volumes, heading towards a large hall. Here, a uniquely designed staircase in marble and stainless steel emerges.

The building is surrounded by a garden where the pergolas are made with materials such as tiles, sleepers, wrought iron of innovative use and keeping the language of recovery as in the main house.

Olive trees, native plants and enveloping perfumes accompany us along “El Rastro Maison du Design” route, where you can enjoy geometry, perceptions coming from the garden and a large sculpture with water beneath it plunging into a dreamy pond. Special corners where to discover beauty.

“El Rastro Maison du Design” has therefore been the space to show the creative capacity of all the works created abroad by Graciela Leanza and Javier Martin.

The projection of new ideas culminates in a project created by a brand such as Baxter. Starting from architecture, an attempt was made to highlight the soul of this space, in order to blend the incessant source of creativity and the ancestral spirit of the house. A building with its own identity, a personal mood, perfumes, colors, natural forms and an Italian aesthetics that Baxter proposes in all the projects it creates.

The approach chosen for this project is the one of respecting spaces, filling this frame which holds eclectic, complete and enveloping environments inside.

 A living area, a kitchen and then a living space again that are organized on several levels in a succession of spaces that are characterized by completely different keys to interpretation.

The space presented on the first floor is bolder and denser in colour; the nuance of the earth accompanied by flashes of black and red colour are presented with warm shades of colour for both soft and rigid leathers. Here the nuances are emphasized and enhanced through combinations with materials in which the raw material becomes the protagonist.

Going up to the second floor, where the sea is visible from its windows, the tones become lighter and more delicate, but of great character at the same time. Both for the furnishings and for all the finishes, the colour shades chosen range from white to powder blue. The walls, characterized by minimal graphics, blend perfectly with the other elements of the house.

Finally, the impressive garden becomes the perfect setting for the brand’s Open-Air collection. Chairs, armchairs and complementary furnishings made of tubular copper combined with leathers for the outside, alongside a minimal collection of small tables made of baked clay.

The end result is the one of a real home, but also an art gallery, that makes the visitor feel completely absorbed by the vibrant, cosmopolitan and international space around him.

PhotoCredit
Fabrizio Ciccone

Stylist
Francesca Davoli