Hellscraper or the Cave house / Fernando Higueras

The Hellscraper (“RascaInfiernos” in Spanish) is the famous Cave House located seven meters below ground designed in 1972 by Fernando Higueras to be his home. Nowadays the Fernando Higueras Foundation keeps the space where the architect lived and worked and strives to continue documenting and disseminating his work.

Hellscraper by Fernando Higueras technical information

Architects : Fernando Higueras
Location : Madrid, Spain
Typology : Residencial Projects / Private Residences
Evocative Topics : Cave
Project Year : 1972
Photographs : © Fernando Higueras Foundation © Leonor Martin

This idea saved my life thirty-odd years ago, when my friend Francisco Nieva read my tarot and the death appeared 4 times in a row in the cards. He saw me buried underground with a cypress above me in only three years.

I insisted that this did not necessarily mean I would die. It then occurred to me the first hellscraper. I planted a cypress, which is now 18 meters high, and I’m still here…alive

– Fernando Higueras (Project Anecdote)

Hellscraper or the Cave house Images

Hellscraper House Article

Higueras was obsessed with underground constructions. The Cave is present in his most experimental projects, such as “The City of Seagulls” on the cliff of Famara in Lanzarote and he highly influenced other Spanish Architects such as Cesar Manrique who decided to build his house in Teguise below the volcanic ground of the island.

In 1972, Higueras bought this house in Madrid and where he decides to build and underground house where he would spent the rest of his life. Higueras performed almost simultaneously, the total remodeling of the existing dwelling and the excavation of a 9x9x7m cube in the garden and a 2x2x7m prism to locate the spiral staircase that leads to the second basement. Today, the space is entirely dedicated to the Foundation and has remained almost unchanged.

The house stands out not only for the originality but for the environmental quality of the interior. The gap under the larger skylight illuminates the rooms which remains perfectly lit during daylight hours.