Iconic Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert and his mid-century Ibiza enclave
Perched above Cap Martinet, heritage-listed Urbanizatíon Can Pep Simó is an ode to Spanish modernist style
‘It is as if these rural houses have miles and miles of stone roots that make up one of the elements of the island’s landscape. There is not only an architecture of the house, but also an architecture of the landscape.’
When the Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert wrote these words in 1933, he was describing a form of architecture and a way of living entirely new to both he and his modernist contemporaries. The purity of the buildings he discovered in Ibiza and the sobriety of their form were diametrically opposed to the fast-paced modern world from which he had come.
Sert (1902-1983) was one of the most influential Spanish architects and urban planners of the 20th century. He studied architecture in Barcelona before moving to Paris in 1928 to work with the Swiss modernist Le Corbusier. While his work formed part of the European avant-garde movement, Sert remained deeply influenced by the Catalan traditions of his upbringing. His work contributed to the architectural principles of functionalism, but blended with the classic features of Mediterranean architecture and the aesthetic contrast of contemporary art.
In 1932, Sert teamed up with the revolutionary Spanish architect, designer and town planner Josep Torres Clavé and others to found GATEPAC (Group of Spanish Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture). Among its first board of directors was Catalan architect and arch modernist Germán Rodríguez Arias, with whom Sert would develop a close relationship. Upon moving to Ibiza in the mid-1930s, Sert and his contemporaries – including the Austrian Dadaist Raoul Haussmann - became transfixed by the simplicity and purity of Ibiza’s vernacular architecture, believing it be a precise ode to the dialogue between the Ibizencan man and his landscape. ‘The geometric constructions are simple, purely utilitarian, of an exemplary dignity, a rest for the eyes and for the spirit,’ Sert declared. ‘All its elements have the right measure, the human measure.’
In response to their findings, in 1964 Sert and Arias designed the purpose-built urbanisation of Can Pep Simó, near Cap Martinet. Now heritage-listed, the small development of privately-owned houses clustered on a hillside demonstrates in pure form the architects’ theory, that modern architecture ought to be both rational and welcoming. Can Pep Simó’s covetable houses – white-edged, cuboid and low-slung, with soft curves and a distinctly finca style - represent both Sert’s humanistic vision and the very peak of Spanish mid-century modernism.
