Castle Winery Camino de Santiago, Spain by Moral Arquitectura.

Photos: Jorge López-Conde.

Carved by human hand from the living rock of a Spanish hill, is a network of tunnels and galleries that form the cellars of the winery known as the Castle Winery, Calle Las Bodegas, "Camino de Santiago”. This network of tunnels is ancient, and in local lore, has always been there.

Called upon to develop this working winery, Moral Arquitectura wanted to connect into this ancient world to unveil it as a series of spatial experiences that tell not just a history of the winery, but a history of the very lives and ways of the people, the wine and the rock that are so inextricably linked to this place.

As a celebration of the bicentenary of the winery the project will transform some of the galleries into a restaurant deep within the ground. A kind of refined culinary experience to compliment the rugged walls of the caves and lives of those that carved them. The work is not finished, and perhaps never will be. There was no master plan but rather an evolving and rolling intuitive process in which all those involved in building the project played a creative role. It now serves as a record of this generation's contribution.

Materiality is explored through concrete, rough cast and tooled to create tactile features reminiscent of the rock, but clearly the result of craft and artifice. Above ground, parts of the structure are timber clad and feel more temporary. In the relative history of the rock, the timber will rot away in the apparent blink of an eye for another generation to recreate.