Villa Tabaiba, a mysterious house... Who lives there?

Arriving in Corralejo, from the road of the Dunes, there is a colorful house full of plants and sculptures, a bit surrealist: Villa Tabaiba.

(Tabaiba is the name of a typical plant of Fuerteventura, a species of cactus of the Euphorbiacee family.)

The curiosity to enter and discover more is very strong, it seems a magical place and quite different from other places.

With much desire and a bit of luck, also thanks to the support of the Corralejo Camera Club, we head towards this magical enclosure and discover that imagination has not been enough. We are facing a wonderful place where Art and Nature are in perfect harmony.

The owner of this mysterious house in Corralejo is Carlos Calderón Yruegas, an architect born in Seville, but also a painter, photographer, sculptor, writer, in a few words, an artist at 360 degrees.

He welcomes us with great cordiality to let us visit the Villa, to photograph his works and to interview him. As soon as we enter, we notice a lot of vegetation mixed with artworks, an artistic and magical garden: it seems to us entering an oasis.

Carlos Calderón Yruegas is above all a minimalist architect who designs very efficient and practical houses that only need a little maintenance.

For over 30 years he has lived in this house enjoying his art by creating works and colored sculptures full of hidden meanings. You can understand his works by looking at them with the eyes of the heart, looking for what the artist wanted to say, and then give a personal opinion.

We asked him: Why this house?

“For my personal pleasure, it's like a joke. I am an architect and I'm very rational and minimalist while designing houses, but with this Villa I can have fun, entertain me and enjoy my own art.”

In addition, Carlos Calderón Yruegas, is a writer very fond of the island, he has written many books such as: "Escrito en Fuerteventura" and "Apuntes para un viaje a la isla de Fuerteventura"

Day after day, working as an architect and writing books, he created this wonderful house, but at the same time, very hard to maintain.

Each corner of Villa Tabaiba is peculiar, every window is different from the other, there is a tower in the middle of the house, with fixed windows very difficult to clean, big plants in the garden, and so on...  everything needs to be in good conditions and always there are many works to do. "This house began as a whim" Carlos comments "but now I have become a slave to it, its conservation keeps me very busy".

He was called "the artist of the mannequins" and we asked him if all the works are made by him:

“Yes, I made everything by myself, I only bought the dummies and then I transformed them. My last exposure was mainly a manipulation. I make a composition and then I convert it according to my style”.

Carlos Calderón Yruegas is a great artist who has been showing artworks since he was 14 years old and his catalogs are distributed all over the world, in every place where he exhibited his works.

He also exhibits some of his fixed sculptures here in Fuerteventura, in Puerto del Rosario, in Antigua near the "Museo del Queso" and at the airport, for example.

The desire of Carlos Calderón Yruegas is to expand the Art in Fuerteventura, when he arrived on the island, many years ago, there were only six artists and now they are many more, of all nationalities, and it would be great to give them the importance they deserve.

We totally agree and we think that "Villa Tabaiba" deserves more artistic recognition by everyone. We leave you a photo gallery so you can appreciate this incredible building

Villa Tabaiba Photogallery

 By Angela Pasquali
Photos: Maurizio Bertuccelli, Alan Hillman, Corralejo Camera Club