Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
·
November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
21
Insular Government with the aim to use them as tools for the sustainable tourism development
on the Island.
As it has been reported by a recent study (Centro de Datos de Lanzarote, 2012) the
Centres have had an average of a little over two million visitors in the last two years, with an
increase of +9.3% from year 2010 to 2011. The most visited attractions are Montañas del
Fuego and Jameos del Agua, which are certainly the most peculiar ones. Third is Cueva de los
Verdes, which may be less spectacular, but which probably benefits from its proximity to
Jameos del Agua (the two tourist centres are within walking distance of each other). Fourth is
Mirador del Rio, a restaurant which offers one of the most amazing panoramic views on the
Island. The relative lower number of visitors could be explained by two factors. First, being
situated in the northernmost part of the Island it is relatively far from other tourist areas and it
is normally left out of bus tour routes. Second, Manrique’s attempt to camouflage the building
with the surroundings was so successful that from the outside it doesn’t look very tempting,
since it seems like ‘just another pile of rocks’ that can be seen in the cactus fields around, as a
German tourist described it. As a matter of fact, during my last visit to the centre in May
2012, I noticed small groups of tourists of various nationalities reluctantly standing in front of
the entrance and asking the people coming out if it was really worth paying the fee to go
inside.
The Jardin de Cactus and Castillo de San José are also normally left out of bus tours
and therefore receive fewer visitors than the other centres. There are no data concerning the
Monumento al Campesino, which is probably due to the fact that entrance is free and so the
visitors are not counted.
Through his artworks Manrique tried to convey a message to both Lanzarote’s
inhabitants and tourists that the Island’s appearance was the result of geological processes that
were still operating. He did not want to do that, though, through the institution of museums
and other canonical forms of information. He embraced the principles of Pop Art, which
challenged the common sense of ‘fine art’ by potentially turning every object into an artwork.
In contrast to Pop Art, which somehow required a decontextualization of the object itself to be
effective, Manrique made the context one of the most important elements of his works.
The Auditorium built in the Jameos del Agua, for example, acquires significance
especially due to the fact that is was built inside a volcanic tunnel, making the most of the
geological qualities to obtain incredibly fine acoustics. Jameos del Agua is also representative
because it features a bar and a dance floor, two things that are usually not associated with an
art piece, but that convey a playful character to the place. And this was exactly the aim of
Manrique, who wanted to highlight the geological phenomenon that created the lava tunnel by
offering a particular experience that would impress the visitor and thus be memorable.
Manrique also had an important role in the declaration of Lanzarote as a UNESCO
Biosphere Reserve in 1993 and in the consequent development of sustainable tourism on the
Island. The artist can be considered a pioneer for his time, since the theme of sustainability
was not considered important either in worldwide public opinion, or in the official discourse
until the mid-1980s, early 1990s. When this concept was theorized for the first time in the
‘Charter for Sustainable Tourism’, developed at the 1995 World Conference on Sustainable
