Las Pozas: The Surrealist Xanadu Of Edward James
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Wealthy British eccentric Edward James was a great patron of the surrealist art movement. Supporting and sponsoring artists such as Salvador Dali and René Magritte, who actually stayed at Edward's house in London. But what Edward Jamesis most renowned for is the creation of Las Pozas (The Pools) in Xilitla, Mexico. His surrealist version of Xanadu, from the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan. The famous poem that apparently Coleridge wrote after having a dream fuelled by opium.
After being encouraged by an artist friend to find somewhere to express himself, in 1945 Edward James discovered Xilitla in the rainforests of Mexico north of Mexico City. He bought a coffee plantation there and from 1947 he grew orchids on the land, until a frost in 1962 destroyed most of the orchids. It was then that he started to build Las Pozas. |
He dedicated himself until his death to create what he himself described as a Surrealist Xanadu in the jungle, spending millions employing hundreds of builders, masons local craftsmen and artisans to create his vision. By his death in 1984 he had created 36 sculptures with surrealist names like the "House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six" and "Staircase to Heaven". All spread over the whole 20 acres of the land he'd bought in the jungle. Some of the sculptures (or structures) rise high 3 or 4 stories into the jungle canopy. Many are connected by bridges and walkways, that twist and spiral through the trees. Over the years the jungle has encroached on the structures, growing around them, giving the place another worldly feel of a bizarre ruined city constructed by an alien civilisation.
Strange gothic towers and arches punctuate the sky, staircases snake upwards to nowhere, and narrow walkways that traverse the jungle like an incomplete city built by Aztecs on peyote and designed by Escher. Edward James designed the place inspired by the jungle itself, his beloved orchids and elements he borrowed from the Surrealist art movement. Construction of Las Pozas cost more than $5 million. James Edward sold his collection of Surrealist art at auction to pay for the construction work.
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In the summer of 2007, the Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, the company Cemex, and the government of San Luis Potosí paid about $2.2 million for Las Pozas and created Fondo Xilitla, a foundation that will oversee the preservation and restoration of the site.Despite being an active patron of the arts and a friend of many artists and writers, Edward James wasn't a trained artist of architect himself. Which places Las Pozas in the realms of outsider art. And perhaps one of the most impressive examples of outsider art, apart from the Palais Idéal which was single-handedly built by French postman Ferdinand Cheval, but that's for another article.
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From A Single Stone, A Postman Built An Ideal Palace - The visionary outsider artist and postman, Ferdinand Chavel, who spent 33 years building his ideal palace, Le Palais idéal in France.
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The Winchester Mystery House - Like an Escher nightmare made real, a haunted house with an architecture that boggles the mind, and defies belief.
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