Formentera‘s architecture is a result of the need to adapt the houses to a territory with few resources and which is linked to agriculture and livestock. That is why older houses follow the same constructive pattern based on sobriety and simplicity to respond to the day-to-day needs of a rural society. All of them are part of the Insular Catalog of Heritage with varying degrees of protection, which in most cases, requires owners to use the original materials when they want to reform them. These houses, that are part of the local DNA, are of thick walls, built with stones and lime mortar.
The oldest have a flat roof, with enough slope to collect the rainwater that runs into a cistern. Later the gable roofs appear. The internal distribution is characterised by a large main room that incorporates on one of its sides a large fireplace around which the family life revolved. To this space were added several rooms and sometimes a loft which is accessed by an internal staircase. Outside there were pens to shelter the animals and all the for farming necessary outbuildings. With the passage of time and the arrival of tourism, many of these houses have become luxury villas.
Others, of new construction, have incorporated new materials and avant-garde designs by young architects who have managed to maintain the tradition and the integration into the landscape in projects that may seem anachronistic but mark the future of second homes. In our memory is the French architect and engineer, Henri Quillé, who opted at the end of the 20th century for self-sufficient houses, with solar panels and windmills, a model that is now on its way to be recovered.
