Every room is a flowery artwork: Baixa House

By Ulrich Stefan Knoll

Lisbon is not only the poli­tical and eco­nomic centre of Por­tugal but also often referred to as the “City of Light”. As if that wasn’t reason enough to travel there, the sun shines 300 days a year, and the city and its sur­roun­dings are rich in sights and cul­tural offers. Right in the centre, more pre­cisely in the Baixa quarter in the middle of the pro­tected old town and hence very close to famous places, as for example the Praça do Comércio square on the banks of the Tejo river, URLAUBSARCHITEKTUR has had a favourite holiday accom­mo­dation for many years: Baixa House.

13 indi­vidual apart­ments await the guest, located in a his­toric, Pom­baline-style, XVIIIth century building, which com­bines late-baroque with neo-clas­sicism. The building has a façade that is distin­gu­ished by its blue azulejo tiles, an unmista­keable mark of Por­tu­guese identity. Its refurbishment—completed in 2011—is the work of Por­tu­guese architect José Adrião in close coope­ration with its pro­prietor, Spanish land­scape architect Jesús Moraime, and the interior desi­gners Javier Car­rasco and Juan de Mayoralgo.

Since the con­s­truction of the building in the late 18th century, there have been num­erous changes that have signi­fi­cantly modified the ori­ginal cha­racter of its com­ponents. The project strategy decided upon was the­r­efore to accept its existing hete­ro­ge­neous cha­racter. The inter­vention was defined as a new addition in con­ti­nuity with the history of the building, incor­po­rating the changes of dif­ferent times and leaving aside a pos­sible res­to­ration process. The main inter­ven­tions deter­mined by the project were the typo­lo­gical change from two apart­ments per floor to three, the instal­lation of an ele­vator, the repla­cement of all infra­struc­tures and the pre­ser­vation of a sub­stantial part of con­s­truction ele­ments.

UA: A pecu­liarity that we did not mention yet is the interior deco­ration of the single apart­ments, each of which bears a relation to one of Lisbon’s famous parks. How did this idea come about?

Jesús: The gardens and how the vege­tation mixes with the urban archi­tecture seems to me one of the most notable cha­rac­te­ristics of Lisbon. Being a land­scape architect and a great lover of Lisbon’s gardens, it seemed very appro­priate to pay homage to them in the apart­ments and also to help bring them closer to all those who come here to get to know and enjoy the city.

UA: How is it that today ever­y­thing comes across as a won­derfully light, almost floating com­po­sition of delicate but well-defined indi­vidual spaces, enriched by so many, yet subtle refe­rences to Por­tu­guese (garden) culture?

Jesús: All the pieces of the puzzle fit tog­ether per­fectly. Architect Jose Adriao helped me from the first moment in choosing the building from a tech­nical point of view, and once we had found Baixa House, where soul and func­tion­ality were united, we began to work closely on the project. My initial idea was to bring an aban­doned building back to life with a respectful approach to the local cha­racter, trying to pre­serve the ori­ginal qua­lities of the building, doors, windows, cei­lings and floors to the greatest extent pos­sible.

What was initially planned as long-term rental apart­ments became the Baixa House project after I got to know this type of short-stay accom­mo­dation and expe­ri­enced how pleasant it was to stay in them and to be more closely immersed in the daily life of Lisbon. At that moment, when the work was almost finished, María Ulecia, a person with a lot of expe­rience and a pioneer in the world of local accom­mo­dation in Lisbon, joined the project and con­tri­buted to its final con­cep­tua­li­sation. Working in unison we decided that the best way to establish that link between the city parks and the apart­ments was the use of visual refe­rences. So I started to work on it with the camera in hand to achieve the large, medium and small-format pho­to­graphs that today accompany us in every corner of the apart­ments. The col­la­bo­ration with UGO, the interior design studio of Javier Car­rasco and Juan de Mayoralgo, was fun­da­mental to trans­forming the building into Baixa House. They per­fectly understood the idea of finishing a space with a very Por­tu­guese air, using tra­di­tional artisan ele­ments and making refe­rence to the city gardens in the type of fur­niture and the colour scheme. Baixa House had to be a unique experience—from its archi­tecture to the warm attention of the house staff, through to its fur­niture, household linen, flowers and breakfast.

UA: During my visit I expe­ri­enced a won­derful feeling—like in a habi­table exhi­bition, shel­tered and inspired at the same time. What role does art play in your life, Jesús?

Jesús: I feel that all my life I have been quite close to art, mainly in my work as a land­scape architect, where designing spaces, plant arran­ge­ments or lighting effects or just drawing my pro­jects in water­co­lours is essential. I think my whole work is closely con­nected to art. This is also true for my pho­to­graphy work, and, yes, even more inten­sively in our tou­ristic world as the creator of Baixa House and various other accom­mo­dation pro­jects. For me, art is everywhere—in garden design as well as in many other inspiring con­texts.

UA: How come that you, as a native Spa­niard living in Spain, fell in love with Lisbon in the first place, and why did you choose this house—there could have been “easier“ pro­jects, couldn’t there?

Jésus: Since I was a child, I have had a very close rela­ti­onship with Portugal—as a holiday desti­nation or close to places where I lived tem­po­r­arily. Over the years, through love I made a great group of friends in Lisbon, who, tog­ether with the city’s fasci­nating archi­tecture, its charming hilly land­scape and the con­nection to the sea, were the keys that helped me define myself.

And, yes of course, I could have found easier pro­jects, but I fell in love with this building and the oppor­tunity to bring a neglected world back to life. A pleasant and very fruitful expe­rience that ended in a building reno­vation, which, and this is a nice side effect, has for­t­u­nately been widely recognised—with, for ins­tance, the 2011 Vasco Villalba Prize from the Gul­benkian Foun­dation for His­toric Refur­bishment as well as being a finalist in the 2012 FAD awards.

UA: Jesús, as a renowned expert on his­to­rical Iberian gardens, what would you recommend guests to see at least—what makes the Lisboan gardens special?

Jesús: Lisbon has one of the richest hor­ti­cul­tural heritage in Europe, with gardens from the 17th to the 20th century, which tell us a lot about the history of the city and its inha­bi­tants, and up to four gardens that have been granted the label of bota­nical. In its gardens, influences from the Roman and Islamic past, blended with others from the Italian Renais­sance and French and English courtly fashions come tog­ether with exotic vege­tation from the Por­tu­guese overseas colonies. All in all, a heritage that is not suf­fi­ci­ently valued and more than worth getting to know and enjoy.

Anabela, you have been running the Baixa House since 2015. Where do your guests come from and what do they like most?

Anabela: The majority of our guests come from Europe, with Germany taking the leading role for us. But apart from natio­nality, I notice that our guests app­re­ciate that there is a soul behind our apart­ments; not only with regards to the archi­tecture itself but behind all activities—starting with the booking contact and cor­re­spon­dence, to check-in, through to pre­sence and service in the building. As we have fol­lowed our strategy of direct boo­kings, our clients feel con­fident in every phase of the rela­ti­onship. They know that they can maintain their privacy here to the extent that they want—with a very dis­creet but high-quality back­ground service. The resulting freedom seems to be a rather ideal mix for our guests.

UA: Talking of guests, what is your general idea of wel­coming visitors?

Jesús: In an era of glo­ba­li­sation and deper­so­na­li­sation, being able to app­re­ciate the cha­racter of a place and the warmth of its people is some­thing that we believe Baixa House con­tri­butes to. The com­bi­nation of the location, the archi­tecture, the respect for the past, the history of Lisbon’s gardens, a special and tim­eless deco­ration and a staff that is in every detail pas­sionate about wel­coming and caring for our guests is the key to what we offer at Baixa House.

Anabela: As I men­tioned earlier, the best welcome you can give to your guests is to under­stand how to make them feel com­for­table. This feeling comes from both the details and the soul of the place. The greatest proof of this trust is the respect, the sym­pathy, the enormous under­standing and the caring words we have received from our guests in the past, dif­ficult months of the global crisis.

Footnote 1

The special rela­ti­onship of the apart­ments and their cor­re­sponding gardens is described in indi­vidual por­traits that can be found on the Baixa Houses website ((https://baixahouse.com/de/lissabon-reisefuehrer/lissabon-gaerten/belem/)). For all those inte­rested in details about the gardens of Lisbon: Jesús Moraime has edited a nine-part book series, which you will, of course, find in the house.

Footnote 2

* We had been chatting about Christmas deco­ration at the beginning as I had been asking Anabela for the most unusual, curious or charming thing she has ever been asked by her guests so far… so, here is the little outtake!

Anabela: Last Christmas we had a big catholic family staying in several apart­ments of Baixa House, and it was amazing the way they asked me to arrange for Christmas crafts as deco­ration in the biggest apartment, where they were all having the festive meals. They trusted me without knowing me, and I had the oppor­tunity to visit several Christmas markets to search for deco­ration. I found so many beau­tiful and creative things, and this gave me the oppor­tunity to meet many inte­resting people and artisans. I was espe­cially proud of a beau­tiful crib and a Christmas tree that I found at Car­ca­velos, my local market. They loved it, and this was the most important gesture. What could be better than happy guests?