In 1820, at just eighteen years old, Antoni Cuyàs, originally from Mataró, set off for Argentina with little more than basic knowledge of navigation. Not many years later, after a meteoric career, he had become the most feared corsair among Brazilian ships, which, according to chronicles of the time, rarely escaped his cannon fire. Having amassed an enormous fortune while still very young, he abandoned life at sea and developed both personal and financial ties with the country’s ruling classes, becoming a frequent advisor to the presidents of the era. After an unfortunate marriage that produced no descendants, and wishing to spend his final years in his native Mataró, he returned in 1865. There he purchased two houses on the Rambla, joined them together, and commissioned a group of Italian artists working in the area to design him a residence reminiscent of the palaces he had frequented in Argentina. Towards the end of his life, he met an orphaned boy who shared his surname and decided to adopt him, making him his sole heir. Several generations followed—artists, writers, bon vivants—and over the years the house endured a turbulent fate, stripped of many of its most valuable elements, although the Cuyàs family managed to retain ownership.
By 2023, Manuel Cuyàs, the pirate’s great-great-grandson, together with his wife Nuria (Argentinian, as fate would have it), a designer and cultural worker, had grown tired of living in spaces trapped in a distorted past that did not suit their working routine, as both work from home. They decided to undertake the renovation of the three rooms that still retained original elements: the entrance hall, the dining room, and the pirate’s room, the latter listed by the heritage authorities. The requirements were simple: to fully enjoy all the spaces, to use the main room both as a living room and a workspace, to keep the dining room exclusively for dining, to give the entrance hall a meaningful role within the ensemble, and to restore some of the badly mistreated grandeur the house once possessed.
A large stainless-steel plinth—an indispensable material for the pirate—anchors the entire perimeter of the main room, accommodating workspaces, the sofa area, and storage, while establishing a continuous material element that unifies the intervention. Above it, the original wallpapers are preserved, family paintings return to their place, and the polychrome ceiling once again presides over the room, free from installations and cables. Below, the original terracotta floor has been recovered and treated to prevent its constant disintegration through a complex process of resin application and consolidation. The non-original tiles along the perimeter were removed to facilitate the passage of installations, which rise concealed behind the steel plinth. This perimeter frame is finished with micromortar, flexible enough to adapt to the movements of a very old structure.
Cracks in ceilings and walls, as well as imperfections in the wallpaper and flooring, are intentionally left visible—there is no intention of “injecting botox.” Even the channels carved into the walls to bring electricity to the wall lights remain unfinished and untouched, embracing the beauty of time and continuous transformation. The relationship between the painting of the pirate in his later years, proudly displaying his sword (now preserved in the entrance hall), and the mirror that once faced it has been maintained. In place of the mirror, a large mirrored cabinet conceals a glossy yellow lacquered interior housing a television, paired with a bespoke coffee table.
The dining room receives a new dark oak floor that harmonizes with the original wooden wainscoting, contrasted by the original green tiles above. The entrance hall has been cleared of later additions and exposed installations, reinforcing its role as the threshold to a distinctive interior while restoring dense, deep colours to both walls and flooring.
Although modest in size, the project is ambitious in scope, encompassing design at every scale: stainless-steel details, joints, and panels; natural stone knobs embedded in steel drawers; the iron fireplace frame paired with recovered triangular tiles; perimeter lighting for the polychrome ceiling; a large stainless-steel bookshelf for an extensive collection; the arrangement of artworks and ceramics; and the careful selection of switches, radiators, handles, luminaires, fabrics, and curtain rods, alongside the imposing glossy-lacquer table by Carlo Scarpa. The room is now climate-controlled, though the system remains discreetly hidden. Ultimately, the technical complexity recedes, allowing the space to recover its former splendour—not as a museum piece frozen in an idealized past, but as a living environment that acknowledges its history while carrying it forward into the present.
Raúl Sánchez Architects: Nerea Moya, Marta Gámiz, Flavia Thalisa Gütermann
Photography José Hevia
