House For Photographer II | Alcanar, Spain | Carlos Ferrater/ Carlos Escura

In Alcanar, Ferrater has created his own particular interpretation of this tradition in a home he built for his brother, José Manuel Ferrater. He describes the locale, with its fertile gardens, orchards, and rice fields, as “the perfect union between nature and agriculture. And I think architecture, at least here, is born from this symbiosis.” To illustrate this observation, he points to his treatment of the former garden that the house occupies. In keeping with current Spanish coastal zoning, the house is set far back from the water, and because of periodic flooding, its pavilions stand on a platform 20 inches above the ground. Ferrater has framed the long space between house and shore with low concrete walls (which divert floodwaters without blocking views), and populated its sandy, gravel floor with stately rows of palms. “It’s a way of replicating the agricultural order with a very architectonic salon,” he explains. “Those palms, planted in formation, are like the rows of lettuce and tomatoes next door.”......more