The brutalist beauty of Aragon: Spain's edgiest escape

Times

05-07-2025

On the incline of a remote woodland in northeastern Spain a monumental building of concrete and glass hides among thickets. Viewed from below it rises as an imposing, monolithic statement in contemporary brutalism, held up by a chunky plinth that houses its entrance. The building heaves with weight and materiality and yet — because of a narrower plinth supporting it from below — the main, upper part of the building appears from some angles to be floating.
This piece of cutting-edge architecture stands among the hills of Matarraña, a tucked-away county in the region of Aragon, two hours' drive from Zaragoza, to the northwest, and three hours by road from Barcelona, to the east. This untouristy area borders the Catalan town of Horta de St Joan, where Picasso sojourned early last century, and has been dubbed 'the Spanish Tuscany'. It's a paradise of waterfalls and natural pools made for hiking and cycling — and the amazing house in which I'm staying is part of a wider art project that also features a new sculpture park, providing even more reason to visit.
My holiday home — sleeping four and named after Pezo von Ellrichshausen, the Chilean architecture studio that designed it — is part of Solo Houses, a project run by the Madrid-based art dealers Marta Albarran and Christian Bourdais. The concept involves placing jaw-dropping architectural commissions in secluded rural landscapes, with two self-catering properties completed so far (the other sleeps six) and an ambition to create 15 houses in total.
Meanwhile, the Solo Sculpture Trail can be explored on a two-hour hike through the landscape. It features 22 contemporary artworks including abstract sculptures and conceptual installations. 'Our idea has always been to step out of the white cube,' Albarran says, 'and here we have a giant playing field.'
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The Spanish-French couple also own galleries in Madrid and Menorca, plus an artistic production company in Paris that designs exhibitions and large-scale public art commissions. Their plot in Matarraña occupies 500 acres of olive groves, vineyards and forest, which they see as the ideal home for the magnificent works of art and architecture.
The site neighbours Ports de Tortosa-Beseit Natural Park, comprising mountains, forests and canyons with crystal clear natural pools, as well as El Parrizal, a gorge with a path skirting rock walls along the Matarraña River. Also nearby are Valderrobres and Cretas, charming walled towns that retain their medieval splendour.
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'This area is always green,' Bourdais says. 'It's not far from the sea, with a Mediterranean climate but a bit cooler.' The couple chose this spot because local construction laws allowed for the new builds they envisaged. 'But we don't want to urbanise this landscape,' Bourdais stresses. 'We have houses that can hardly be seen.'
My lodging, built in 2013, is a masterpiece in symmetry, serenity and straight lines, its square layout around a pool courtyard creating four living spaces at right angles to each other, interconnected by verandas at each corner. Despite largely being glass, it feels cool inside, with 360-degree views and white floor-length curtains that billow softly in the breeze. Light moves slowly across the space from sunrise to sunset.
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It's a five-minute drive to the sculpture trail, where I wander through oaks and pines between the artworks, sniffing sprigs of rosemary and thyme as I go. Many of the pieces are tucked away, within clusters of trees and bushes, while others are in open areas with spectacular views.
While being sure to keep my footing on the bumpy terrain, I also venture to the site of what will be the next instalment in the Solo Houses project — a hotel with 25 cylindrical pods as luxurious bedrooms, connected by a series of raised outdoor walkways through the forest. It was designed by another Chilean architect, Smiljan Radic, and is scheduled to open in 2028.
The works on the sculpture trail include the Mexican artist Jose Dávila's piece made using giant boulders from quarries in the nearby Ebro Delta and the British-Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum's globe-shaped iron cage holding cement asteroids, as though in orbit, alluding to the planetary forces of creation and destruction.
The Catalan artist Jordi Colomer has contributed a giant solar-powered neon sign reading 'No? Future!' — a nod to the 1977 Sex Pistols song God Save the Queen that also highlights the climate crisis. 'There's a dual message in the artworks,' Bourdais says. 'One is that the world is falling apart and the other is more hopeful — how to live together and reconnect.'
After all that food for thought I need to wash it down with something, so it's handy that my journey ends at Venta d'Aubert, a bodega producing organic wines through regenerative farming that Albarran and Bourdais acquired from a Swiss couple and revamped in 2022 to offer tours and tastings. I try an appley, citrussy viognier, a grape typically from the Rhône region that the founders introduced. I also try newer wines produced under the present ownership from grenache, a variety that has been cultivated in Matarraña for centuries. Cheese, chorizo and salchichon complement the tastings (from £20; ventadaubert.com).
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I also explore the cellars used for fermenting, ageing and bottling with the manager, Henry Escudero. He explains that the subsoil of these vineyards is rich in limestone and clay, informing the minerality of the drink. Nearby wine regions such as Priorat and Terra Alta have Denomination of Origin status, and Venta d'Aubert and other local bodegas are campaigning for this to also be granted to Matarraña.
Similarly, the new sculpture park aims to follow Chillida Leku near San Sebastian and the Montenmedio Contemporary Foundation in Cadiz in helping to join the dots between art and design. 'Matarraña is being talked about, and we've contributed a bit to that,' Bourdais says. 'We've put it on the Spanish map, but my objective is to put it on the world map.'Agnish Ray was a guest of Solo Houses, which has two nights' self-catering for four from £550. Entry to the Solo Sculpture Trail is £4 or free for house guests (solo-houses.com). Fly to Zaragoza or Barcelona