Cateto Club Interior Design: Cylindrical Forms and Retrofuturist Style on the Costa del Sol
An immersive space where curves, colour, and light
reinterpret the hedonistic language of 1960s “Relax Style”
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Presented at Marbella Design and Art 2026, Cateto Club, conceived by designer Alejandro Cateto in collaboration with interior landscaper Charo Benítez, is an experimental interior that revisits the hedonistic culture of the Costa del Sol in the 1960s.
Rather than nostalgia, the project translates the spirit of “Relax Style”, where pleasure defined a way of life, into a spatial experience grounded in geometry, colour, and atmosphere.
The Cylinder as Design System
The entire project is articulated through the exploration of the cylinder, a single formal gesture applied across multiple scales. It appears as negative space in seating alcoves, as solid mass in the bar and stools, and as a repeated motif in the ceramic flooring pattern, creating a coherent and almost obsessive design language.
This logic extends to details: sectioned circular doors, curved thresholds, and the custom Sentry Sculpture Light by Ewan Lamm for Ultramar Studio, where the cylindrical form is extruded into lighting. The result is an interior where form, colour, and light replace ornament entirely.
Pop References and Local Architecture
Visually, the space draws from the radical imagination of Verner Panton and Mario Bellini, amplified through saturated colours and continuous curves. Lighting reinforces this atmosphere with iconic pieces such as the Panthella, Nesso, and Gambosa, situating the project between pop and retrofuturist aesthetics.
At the same time, Cateto Club remains rooted in place, referencing buildings along the N-340 and coastal landmarks in Torremolinos, Marbella, and Fuengirola. Here, rough finishes, gotelé textures, and whitewashed outdoor furniture are reinterpreted as intentional design elements, embracing the vernacular and the imperfect.
Monumentality and Afterlife
A defining moment comes at the entrance: a three-metre circular door that operates as both threshold and statement, echoing the spectacle of mid-century nightclub façades designed to capture attention.
Inside, the narrative evolves through an intervention by Charo Benítez, where gerberas and sunflowers emerge through cracks, referencing abandoned coastal structures and their gradual reclamation by nature.
Balancing architectural clarity with emotional texture, Cateto Club becomes a precise study of how geometry, materiality, and memory can be distilled into a single immersive interior.
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