HOUSE TOUR | ROOMS & GARDENS | WORLD OF CABANA
Cusco has a way of capturing time. It also captures hearts and souls, discovers Rebeca Vaisman as she explores Peruvian collector Armando Andrade's beautiful home in the Andean city. The elegant-yet-rustic space is full of art, antiques and fine examples of South American craftsmanship - and its rooms are an homage to his love affair with Cusco.
BY REBECA VAISMAN | ROOMS & GARDENS | 12 DECEMBER 2024
Armando Andrade's well-curated house in Cusco reflects his long love affair with the Andean city © Antonio Sorrentino.
Cusco has a particular energy. Surely, it has to do with the Incan stones that still uphold its city center, and the realization that centuries of sun, rain and humanity have shaped them; with the vivid fusion of cultures and eras, where the pre-Hispanic cosmovision and the colonial ethos vehemently coexist, until this day, under the vibrant sky. Cusco has a way of capturing time.
Peruvian designer and publicist, Armando Andrade, was always intrigued by the Andean city: its millenary and complex story, the uniqueness of its paved streets, the mysteries of its crafts and architecture. “I was always interested in Peruvian identity,” recalls Andrade. “I kept asking myself what it was about Cusco that we, as Peruvians, still hadn’t fully understood.” Determined to find out, he bought a house in 1995, only a few steps away from the main square – Cusco’s famed Plaza de Armas – in the corner of the picturesque street, Waynapata, painted by artists of the Indigenist movement, like José Sabogal and Macedonio de la Torre.
The casona used to be part of an early 17th century mansion that was eventually divided into different lots, resulting in this two-floors and patio building. It has a very simple disposition, and also a special charm. The residence was used as a butchery at one point; it was also adapted into a bar and a bodega. Therefore, it needed a lot of mending. It was extraordinary that a house in the prized historic center of Cusco would be renewed to become a home, not a hotel or a restaurant.
Peruvian architect Guillermo Málaga was entrusted with an intervention that sought to clean the house and leave it as pure as possible. This led to several discoveries. While digging into the original floors, the architectural team found remains of an Incan wall, as it was common practice for Spanish constructions to be built on top of them. The roof was coated: once unveiled, the magnificent beam-roof was restored to give a sculptural dimension to the rooms.
Andrade – whose main residence is in Lima – didn’t want to add urban, out of context conveniences: he craved an authentic spirit. Hence, the imperfect adobe walls were left untouched, and the bathroom remained in the exterior, de-attached from the main volume, in the manner of other colonial houses. Only the patio’s floor was redone years later, to have the small format stones follow a circular pattern around the tree.
The rooms are an homage to Andrade’s love affair with Cusco. He is a well-known art and traditional crafts collector, with houses in different Peruvian landscapes, which are more than just receptacles of his infatuation with objects. “I have always searched for spaces that have something important to give,” reflects the host.
His Cusco residence shows local and Andean pieces that, for the most part, have been collected over thirty years. Religious and country life imaginary, traditional textiles and ceramics, antique carpentry, even small paintings of the famed Cusco School – which blended Christian religious and indigenous themes – have been found in artisanal communities, craftsmen workshops, town and antique fairs, even discarded in farmyards. Part of the joy of this house has been putting it all together.
Andrade has added pieces from other Andean regions: the tables of Sarhua, a specific paint form from Ayacucho, or the wool carpet from Cajamarca, placed under Mies Van Der Rohe’s chaise longue; modern and contemporary art; a line of pottery he painted himself (inspired by the house); and other cultural references, as seen in the African textiles that live harmoniously amidst Cusco’s traditional arts.
The rural feeling one gets when admiring the patio from upstairs, behind the balconies that run through the second floor, supports the perception that time is not lineal in this place. This is probably what happens when you become part of ancestral history, comments Armando Andrade: “This house represents the constant learning of a culture that is mine, is ours, of which we still have so much to know about”.
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