El Guadalperal
Lutyens’s El Guadalperal project, one of three Spanish courtyard palaces drawing on local vernacular, was commissioned in 1915 and largely abandoned after the Duke of Peñaranda’s Civil War murder, with an alternative reduced scheme and a related reconstructed farmhouse at Ventosilla, which he called “a Lambay in a sea of Spain.”
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Description
Lutyens produced three projects for palaces in Spain. Each is organised around a courtyard and relies heavily on the local vernacular for its external appearance. The commission for El Guadalperal came in 1915. Although the design was complete in 1917 a further year elapsed before work began. The Duke of Penaranda insisted that the site works and outbuildings were started first, involving the laying of fourteen miles of new road to the hitherto inaccessible site, as well as the terracing of the gardens. A small temporary home was built on the site for the Duke but following his murder during the Spanish Civil War work on the then incomplete house was abandoned.
A scheme exists, in the RIBA Drawings Collection, for a smaller palace omitting the four wings which accommodated the Duke, the chapel court, the kitchen court, and the King when he visited. This scheme has different elevations. Simultaneously Lutyens reconstructed a large farmhouse at Ventosilla for the Duke’s brother-in-law, which underlines the bucolic nature of El Guadalperal. Lutyens described the farmhouse as ‘a Lambay in a sea of Spain’.
Bibliography
Inskip, P. (1986) Edwin Lutyens: Architectural Monographs 6. 2nd edn. London: Academy Editions.
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