Mar Adentro Hotel, San José del Cabo Development, Baja California Building, Architecture

Mar Adentro Hotel in San José del Cabo

Mexican Building Development in Baja California – design by Miguel Ángel Aragonés

5 May 2016

Mar Adentro Hotel

Design: Miguel Ángel Aragonés of Taller Aragonés

Location: San Jose del Cabo, southern Baja California Sur state, Mexico

Mar Adentro Hotel

The architect – Miguel Angel Aragonés – describes how the first time he visited this property and took in the desert and the clear water he felt the “enormous drive of water under a scorching sun”.

The land in the middle of a coastline dotted with “All Inclusives,” would have to be transformed into a ‘box’ that contained its own sea.

It was a pure, minimal landscape. Dreamlike scenery collided on either side with what people consider as ‘architecture’. I wanted to draw my own version, apart from the rest.

Miguel Angel Aragonés believes that the “greatest virtue of architecture is the generation of sensations through space on a series of planes that are found within the realm of sensitivity. I believe this capacity becomes still greater when your surroundings allow you to meld into them, forming thus part of your own space; in this sense, I wanted to take that horizon and bring it into the foreground.”

The water is an event that borders the entire project; all of the volumes open up toward the sea and turn their backs on the city, which is all that remains of the original surroundings, burdened by noise. Mar Adentro is a kind of Medina that opens out onto the sea. Each floating volume contains interiors that form, in turn, independent universes. Each room visually contains a piece of the sea; no one can resist gazing out at it.

For a long time, I have felt that construction has failed to evolve on a par with other endeavors: the automobile, for example, in a hundred years went from being a wagon to what we know today. And yet when I look back at the Pavilion by Mies Van Der Roe, it is in essence very similar to what we see today in architecture, albeit transgressed a bit perhaps through involution.

We see unnecessarily complicated, but relatively non-complex structures scattered around the world. There are some risky proposals that form part of the current panorama we refer to as modern or contemporary, but they have not been very evolutionary.

Each room was built in a factory. Poliform was our ally. We built the entire interior structure and sent it in boxes across the sea to its destination, where it was assembled on site by local hands. In a question of days the first room was ready, of a quality subject to the tyranny of a machine and the wisdom of hands dedicated over the course of a lifetime to construction.

There was no room for improvisation, and yet the room was fashioned with intelligence, imagination, and dedication. I learned from those German and Italian manufacturers what we sometimes fail to intuit from schools or books over the course of many years.

Our project can be constructed entirely through this process, employing a module whose versatility allows it to be divided or added onto, thus becoming autonomous or dependent on another structure. Our main module, for example, is a kind of loft divided in half in order to create two rooms, as simple as that.

In summary, the module is a two-, three-, or four-bedroom apartment; a house can be formed by adding on two or four more modules. The important thing is the versatility of this structure, one that can be entirely factory-made then raised on site in a friendly manner.

Photography: Joe Fletcher

Mar Adentro Hotel in San José del Cabo images / information from Miguel Ángel Aragonés

Miguel Angel Aragonés was born in the city of Mexico, in November 1962. Self-taught, and alien architect by conviction to circles, schools and associations of architects, has made a rich and original architectural work over two decades.

Mexican Hotel Buildings

To see all listed projects on a single map please follow this link.

Architecture in Mexico

Mexico Architecture Tours

Mexican Architecture

Mexican Architecture Designs – chronological list

Mexican Hotel Buildings

Mexican Hotel Building News

Cocoon Hotel, Tulum, Quintana Roo
Architects: DNA Barcelona

image from architects
Cocoon Hotel

The Sail Towers Hotel, Puerto Cancún, Quintana Roo
Architects: DNA Barcelona

image from architects
The Sail Towers Hotel

Vía Vallejo, Ciudad de México
Design: Grow Arquitectos

photograph : Marcos Betanzos
Vía Vallejo in Ciudad de México

Niop Hacienda Hotel, Champotón, Campeche
Design: as Arquitectura & R79

photograph : David Cervera Castro
Niop Hacienda Hotel, Champotón

Treehouse Suite at Playa Viva Sustainable Boutique Hotel
Design: Deture Culsign, Architecture+Interiors

photograph : Leonardo Palafox, The Cubic Studio
Treehouse Suite at Playa Viva Sustainable Boutique Hotel

Heineken House, Polanco, Mexico City
Design: Art Arquitectos

photo : Paul Czitron
Heineken House Mexico City

Ciudad Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas, central Mexico
Arditti + RDT Architects

photo : Arq. Arturo Arditti
Ciudad Gobierno del Estado de Zacatecas