From Boutique
In the Castellon Hills of Les Usères, is one such road leading to an immensity of land that serves as a large, earthy canvas. At the center is a holiday home in Spain that Dutch artist Xander Spronken built: An “art house”, a home that is at once a sculpture and a house greets you with its host of 6-meter high concrete pillars that do not loom so much as they soar.
Spronken approaches architecture the way he does all his artpieces. Negative space is valued as much as positive mass, air and void animated by light and the inexplicable emotion of volume. Speaking of the many towering doors that connect the indoors with the out, he says, “I make the doors high because…why half? I go on until it feels good.”
Spronken House is a sprawling 310 square meters of living space encompassing four bedrooms, four baths and two pools. The dimensions offer air and space in the noblest sense. Its proportions have a long-legged allure that invoke a prehistoric awe of nature. Spronken loves “pure things”, as he puts it, which explains the elements that are left as raw as possible: dense unvarnished wooden beams that speak of trees that continue to live, forged iron hinges and frames, sweeping panels of glass. There is no burden of heft in this enormous structure. On the contrary, there is an airiness that arises from the play of light, indoor/outdoor perspectives, and delicately framed views of the Iberian Mountains, no doubt thanks to the mastery of multi-layered form that Spronken is known for.