Enfrente Arte in Ronda, Spain is an unusually artistic hotel, situated in the south of Andalucia. This idyllic city offers breath-taking views of its ‘new’ bridge as well as the surrounding nature. Hemmingway once declared Ronda to be to most romantic city of Spain. Enfrente Arte didn’t steal its name nor its location, and uses original types of art such as recycling used materials by transforming them into useful furniture or decoration items.

The Age of Aquarium

A freshwater aquarium in multiple levels throughout the tropical garden connects the restaurant with the leisure room.

The water of the 15 meter long pond holds almost 500 fishes of various species.

It’s being filtered naturally by the roots of a large Adam’s Rib plant that spans from the bottom of the aquarium to the ceiling of the patio.

The highest level, a 2 meters high platform constructed above the heating installation of the building, features a series of small artificial islands is referred to as Little Dubai. They are made of concrete and topped with a layer of beach sand.

Hotel guests can hop from island to island until they reach one of those onto which we attached rotary design seats. This makes for a unique sitting corner.

Having a drink on a high level island, while your feet are getting a foot spa treatment by hundreds of small fish sipping on your toes and heels, you’re surrounded by tropical birds and plants, ambient reflections of subtle lighting, and the caustics and acoustics of water are all around you...

If you ever get any closer to complete relaxation, there’s probably no coming back.

Marble Madness

Apart from aquariums on various levels, plants, birds, small islands, hidden treasures and sitting corners, the tropical garden now features a 6 meters high marble waterfall with light effects.

The designers used a mesh of chain-link wire; the small square kind used to fence poultry livestock or small mammals, to jam a huge amount of white stones and transparent glass marbles in a casing of PVC draining pipes, and then placed the construction against the high wall of the patio.

Between the marbles and the wall, in the backsides of the PVC tubes, they positioned perforated optical fibre wires with iterating colours in a symmetrical pattern to light up the marbles.

The magic happens when water is pumped up and it swiftly splashes down the marbles.

The combination of the coloured lights, the fresnel reflection and refraction of the marbles and the water ripples create a beautiful organic ambient atmosphere.

In a Bar under the Sea at an Andalucía Hotel

Ex-manager of the Belgian band dEUS, Filip Eyckmans, finds also inspiration in song texts of this known band. Listening to the song Disappointed In The Sun by dEUS, inspired him to create a bar under the sea. You can find this song, which was never released as a single, on YouTube.