The Flintstone Residence

When Layne told me the largest single piece of pottery in the world is outside the city of Villa de Leyva where we are staying, I was mildly surprised. When I saw it I was astonished.

It took a thousand tons of clay, mixed and worked by five builders  over the course of 14 years to build the pottery house, which collapsed three times during the course of construction,  and the owner and designer  after all that lived in it for just six months before moving out.

Architect Octavio Mendoza started the project in 1998 determined to build the largest piece of pottery in the world and what he ended up with is what looks to practical me as a fascinating but rather uncomfortable home. Layne couldn’t get enough of it so she took the first tour while I hung out with Rusty in the grounds. 

I have a rather unartistic practical bent when it comes to my living space and the idea of carrying out the functions of daily living in the house I photographed fills me with dread. 

But I am in absolute of awe of a mind that can conceive and carry out the intricate and utterly eccentric details of a house made of pottery. And it is fully functional as you will see. A tribute to the work of construction: 

The phallic symbol on the roof is actually a functioning chimney and at 71,000 feet in the foothills of the Andes a fireplace is useful. The decoration on the roof is a tribute to the art of preColumbian Muisca people who lived in Boyacá department before the Spanish conquest. 

Our guides enjoyed their work and told their stories…Here mine, Eugenia,  on the Spanish language tour, was telling us how they mixed  the clay, painted it with soil based paints and then glazed the pottery with modern sealants to prevent weather damage. 

I was on a tour with Colombian family living in Brazil while Layne got the English language tour ahead of me and shared it with a bus load of eager Romanian tourists. I think I got the better deal.  

After a while I drifted off to take some pictures and ponder the brilliant weirdness of the place. The guy in gray above gave me the idea for the title of this page. He smiled and winked at me as we explored the kitchen: “Fred Flintstone’s house!” he said grinning. 

Above is a tribute to the sculptor Botero ( his museum in Bogotá is in our plans), and below is the entrance to the house designed to absorb and retain solar heat. There is a solar water heater on the roof as well. 

A bedroom with a bulging wall that makes climbing the stairs a slightly unbalanced proposition. 

The original idea was to live in the house while opening it to the public  but the thing became so popular Mendoza and his wife were overrun by visitors and they had no privacy. 

So after six months in here they fled! Clearly this piece of pottery is fascinating to a lot of people!

Do not use! I guess some people have no common sense! 

The rules are pretty simple: don’t touch above all, including faucets and switches, and don’t fall or trip. 

I’d get creeped out showering here. 

The refrigerator:

The kitchen:

The roof is open to the public but there are no safety rails. For some visitors it was too exposed.