• The Ruedo was built from 1986 to 1989. Experimental architectonical and social project by Saenz de Oiza. A ghetto, a separate isolated area for the housing of a certain ethnic, cultural group in greater or lesser seclusion, in this case, some of the residents were originally of gypsy ethnic group . Round, closed exterior facade, introverted, degraded interior Patio.

• Poblado Dirigido de Entrevias is a 1956 development located near the new South-East Urban Development currently under construction.  It was planned by the architect Francisco Saenz de Oiza (who also planned the Rodeo, and Bank BBVA tower included that we will see later) and under the supervision of Spain’s then Dictator, General Francisco Franco.  It was a response to the massive immigration from the countryside that Spanish cities experienced in the 1950s.

The Especial Urban Plan of Interior Rehabilitation (PERI) of the old municipal colonies of San Francisco with had homes built in the 1950s, to accommodate a huge number of migrants from the countryside. After considerable deterioration of the residential areas EMVS took them over in 1982 to start the renewal process.

All apartments in the area are intended for the most disadvantaged population groups.

It has allowed their replacement with new developments that include more than 1,890 homes, built with high criteria on sustainability in 8.35 hectares (3.2 square km). It is called the Eco-Neighborhood of Vallecas, designed entirely with environmental and social sustainability criteria. It is the result of a large and complex process directed by the city of Madrid housing company (EMVS), Empresa Municipal de Vivienda.

Today, they will receive us and open one of their last promotions:

San Francisco Javier VI (2023) is an EMVS promotion that combines efficiency, design and comfort. 102 apartments with 1, 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms typologies, many of them with terraces. Distributed in 4 portals, there are also duplex typologies and some homes adapted for people with reduced mobility.

The apartments have abundant natural light, thanks to their large aluminum windows and double laminated glass with an argon gas chamber, which provides great thermal and acoustic insulation. The flooring throughout the house is a wooden laminate, except in the kitchens and bathrooms, with ceramic tiles. Doors are made of lacquered DM, like those of the modular wardrobes.

The building is between 5 and 8 floors high, with four patios that allow independent circulations with their own access from the outside. The abundant vegetation in the common areas stands out, helping to create a pleasant microclimate.

With energy certification A, the building has cross ventilation and a high-performance thermal envelope.

District Heating

As it is located in the Econeighborhood of Puente de Vallecas, it benefits from the advantages of ‘District Heating’, for heating and hot water for the bathrooms. In addition, it has aerothermal energy with solarphotovoltaic panels.

Located in the Econeighborhood of Puente de Vallecas, as one of the promotions of the EMVS that has 1,200 homes, this pioneering project has a centralized heating and domestic hot water system (‘District Heating’) and another pneumatic waste collection system, which gives numerous benefits. environmental and notable economic savings for tenants.

This new pneumatic waste collection system, allows the residents of these new homes to separately deposit containers, rest and organic matter in the gates located in the common areas of their buildings.

The result is a new cutting-edge neighborhood in which energy consumption and CO2 emissions have been significantly reduced.

We will be received by the EMV: By Mauro, the head architect ,and by María Luz, that coordinated the construction for the EMV. They will be available to answer any questions we may have.

After visiting this promotion, we may continue with a visit to the District Heating Plant, given access to Ferrovial, which s the company that built it, leading company in construction of roads, airports, water dams, and sustainable infrastructures.

The District Heating of Thermic Plant, has beautiful Eco-chimneys (2008 -2010) designed by Federico Soriano… that you will see, look industrial, still organic :))) biomimetic.

In this area of Méndez Álvaro, a central industrial area in full development located in the south of the city, rises the business campus of the Spanish multinational Repsol (Spanish Petrol Company), a complex made up of four buildings distributed—like the cloister of a monastery— , around a large interior plaza which large green area with shared spaces and landscaped common areas, which constitutes one of the key points of the project. The other Another key point is the externalisation of part of the structure that we see in the form of ribs on the facade. It allows the interior to be light and diaphanous free open spaces that create flexible distribution and mobility. The volumes also seem to flote suported by the cantilevered structure. Finally, the four buildings are connected to each other through four-story bridges.

It was built from 1893 to 1897, with a project by the architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco. The Ministry of Agriculture building was the Old Development Palace, built at the end of the 19th century, notable for its clear Renaissance traces.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Reina Sofia was the old hospital of San Carlos, built by Carlos III (designed by Fernández Alba, Vázquez de Castro and Iñiguez de Onzoño) as part of a neoclasic urban development. This solid building presents a strong and austere facade only animated by the glass exterior elevators.  On the left of this building we see the extension to the Museum, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel in 2002, a contemporary structure that covers a series of glass containers that host the museums temporary exhibitions, a library and an auditorium.

The old Atocha station, classified as a historic building and considered an outstanding work of Spanish railway and industrial architecture of the 19th century, was designed by the architect Alberto de Palacios and built between 1889 and 1892. The old Atocha terminal station was rehabilitated into the lobby-garden with the functionality of a tropical greenhouse, which gives access to the rest of the two stations that make up the railway complex.

Atocha StationExtension by Rafael Moneo (1984-92).  It was a difficult intervention that Moneo won in a restricted competition.  He had to maintain the original Mediodía Station and integrate new installations for both local and long distance trains, including the high speed terminal.  The new entrance was placed in the back.  The circular entrance building lights up from the top  what was initially a  dark underground and local train station, allowing space for a slender high speed terminal.  The urban image was conceived almost as a monastery, the temples nave as the old station, the bell tower as the clock tower, and the baptistery as the access building.  There old structure is now an interesting tropical garden that we will go through.

received its name because it was conceived and developed by the Marque of Salamanca in the 19^th century.  It is an upper class bourgeois District, known for its elegant atmosphere, and numerous luxurious firms and fashionable shops.

is an elegant and exclusive 44 dwelling private housing development building in the middle of the golden mile of the Salamanca District. A luxurious, still modern and elegant, is designed by a prestigious architect from Madrid, Rafael de la Hoz.

The assignment consisted of the design, execution and construction of a residential building at 121 Claudio Coello street, in the heart of the Salamanca district. Its exceptional location represents an opportunity and at the same time a challenge due to its visible presence from the Juan Bravo bridge on the Castellana. Aware of the importance of its location, the project presents a dual character through the contrast in its materiality. Facing Claudio Coello Street, the building responds to the classic organisation of the neighbourhood, with tripartite facades with a plinth, body and crown. This more urban view is shown strictly, without ornament, modulated by cutting precast white concrete panels.
However, towards the interior, a lighter and more friendly façade opens onto the garden through large glass panels covered with a wooden lattice. A low volume in the form of a house on two heights closes the garden, giving the built complex a human scale.

The Francisco Giner de los Ríos Foundation was created in 1916 with the mission of safeguarding the heritage of the Free Education Institution (ILE), created by the pedagogue Francisco Giner de los Ríos to defend academic freedom and an education independent of official dogmas A century after the death of Giner de los Ríos, the foundation opens a new headquarters in Madrid located on the same plot of Paseo del General Martínez Campos with an extension modern building to an adjacent plot acquired by donation. The result of a public competition of ideas called in 2004, the project has as its central theme the recovery of the garden as a center of activity of the Free Education Institution. It stands out for being an irregular volumetry of transparent construction covered by a skin of steel construction bars and for its surprising and beautiful underground auditorium that is accessed directly from the central patio and garden. Today they have an event and for this reason we cannot visit it today.

The structural concrete core in the centre allows an upper structure were the floor slabs are suspended. The whole volume seems to float. The glass facade innovates with a system later developed by his son, also called Rafael de la Hoz, in Telefonica headquarters that we will visit this morning. De la Hoz pushed for a proposal that defied the convention and the laws of gravity, an expensive prototype with a number of innovative solutions in every aspect of architecture design: space, structure, construction, cladding design or treatment of light.

that belonged to the Spanish Organicism movement. Is a classic tower with an interesting “organic-bridge” concrete structure to solve the problem with the underground train tunnels underneath. Its construction responded to an important challenge as the tower had to be built over the underground railway tunnel. It was decided that the structure would be a mixed structure of steel and reinforced concrete, with a structural system that alowed the existence of floors of different heights, which favoured the creation of horizontal rhythms in the façades. It is one of Madrid’s most important architectural landmarks, with its distinctive ochre colour, which has become more intense with the course of time due to the rusting of the steel of its façade. . Around them, the office area is a clear, undivided workspace, which was a pioneering concept at the time. FinallyThe Banco Bilbao Tower is also an important example of the total autonomy of the façade with respect to the vertical structure. This was set back around the entire perimeter, allowing for a uniform solution, without interruptions or edges, with curved corners.

Originally built in the late 40’s and has since then suffered quite an intensive number of renovations and extensions. 2012 the international competition of ideas was opened and four team where invited: 1. Lamela (local Spanish who did the previous extension to the Stadium in 2001-06) and Populous. 2. Rafael Moneo (local) with Herzog & De Meuron. 3. Norman Foster + Rafael de la Hoz. 4. GMP Architect (Gerkan, Marga und Partner, German – Hamburg) +  Ribas & Ribas + L35 (both local from Barcelona), that won. 2020 starts steel structure/ 2023 finishing construction and stainless steel skin. which is at the present, in the last phase construction, a complete renovation with a new, over imposed steel structure and stainless-steel membrane that completely covers the original building, has led the icon of one of the most important football teams of the world, to also become one of the most modern stadiums of the world.

the buildings began to be erected in 1990 according to the design of the New York studio Philip Johnson & John Burgee Architects and were completed in the fall of 1995. They lean to become a landmark on the main Castellana Axis. The effect is of a Gate or Entry, also known as Puerta de Europa, or main entrance to Europe, conection between marroco and nothern part of Europe (Belgium, adn so on). Resemblance with PPG Place, glass castle in Pittsburgh with red grid on the facade.

Their construction began in 2004 and the completion of the towers occurred in stages: the Espacio Tower by Pei Cob Freed & Partners (US with sutdio in New Yor), main architect Henry Cobb saw the light at the end of 2007. 2. The Glass Tower by Cesar Pelli (also US) at the beginning of 2008 and has a garden in the upper part interior. The Cepsa Tower by Norman Foster in mid-2008 and the PwC Tower or Eurostars Tower by Caros Rubio Carvajal y Enrique Álvarez Sala, worked on solar and heat control, as we put sun glasses and a hat to protect our selves here in Spain, was the last of the four towers and finished at the end of 2009. It has an interesting way to land on the ground, as in a hole, it seems not to end anywhere, and uses also an interesting mixed concrete and steal structure developed by the engineering firm MC-2.

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New Telefónica Headquarters (2004-08) by Rafael de la Hoz in Alcobendas, Madrid. This new headquarters for Spain biggest telecommunications phone company constructed to bring together around 14000 employees.

is a beautiful project by Rafael de la-Hoz which stand out by the solar control facade employed in the four towers that that are located on the four corners of this contemporary immense system, that may resemble a castle, a contemporary castle of innovative technology.

A similar control system was initially explored by his father, also a great architect with the same Rafael de la Hoz name, in the Castelar Building (1977-83) that we saw before in Paseo de la Castellana.

But this new Telefónica Headquarters has four towers alike in each corner, interconnected with a horizontal plane roof system that incorporates what was the largest installation of solar panels in Europe, which shelters and protects the rest of the building of this macro-architecture project, which has in its centre a semi public park space, and constructed its own metro station underground, and therefore linked to the mayor city’s transportation system.

The horizontal roof plane connects and protects 12 office buildings, four of them, as we said, in the corners, are ten story towers.

We will access the building and go to the East 1 Tower up to the 8th floor were we will be able to appreciate the glass facade system, with doble glazing layers hat allow hot air to flow out from the bottom to the top. In between, on those layers we find perpendicular glazing elements that are structural. They provide a beautiful dynamic shadow pattern, that changes through out the day. Finally, glazing has integrated an interesting white dot pattern, so that we may be able to see from the interior out, while we get translucent privacy looking in.

From this position, we may explore and see the main roof plane that integrates the photovoltaic solar panels.

The design of the Telefónica complex will allow very significant savings in air conditioning, 15% in winter and 34% in summer, reducing CO2 emissions by around 5,000 tons per year. The choice of glass facades will allow lighting savings of 42%, which represents a very considerable reduction in energy consumption.

The origin of this energy must be taken into account, since it must be renewable energy.

Telefónica has opted for solar energy, installing at its headquarters the largest solar energy producing park in Europe and one of the largest in the world on roofs. The electrical energy obtained through solar panels will reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 1,600 tons per year.

The business park will have more than 16,600 photovoltaic solar panels located on the roof of the office complex. The dimensions of the canopy exceed one kilometer in length and exceed 57,000 square meters, of which 21,000 square meters will be enabled for the installation of solar panels. The energy project will involve an investment of more than 21 million euros and will generate more than 3.6 GWh per year, with an installed power of around 3 MW peak.

The energy generated by the photovoltaic energy park will be incorporated into Iberdrola’s distribution network and the income generated by this project will be sufficient to meet the electricity consumption of District C. Telefónica’s District C, as a sustainable project, contributes to the reducing pollution by reducing emissions caused by energy consumption.

In the line of sustainability, the space and environment of the building must also be taken into account, so, in particular, landscaping will be taken care of. The wooded surroundings of the complex will reduce solar incidence on the buildings and increase the humidity of the environment. The presence of vegetation will contribute to the reduction of noise pollution.

The Viewpoint of San Chinarro District is this 22 floor housing block in the District of Sanchinarro. The most impressive element of the building is the incredible gap, or empty space in the centre, which acts as a frame for the distant landscape and the mountains to be looked at from this elevated viewing platform. This large communal plaza or community space, stand 40 meter above the ground, and is meant to be used by the neighbourhood as a meeting area and playground. The Mirador Bldg. contains 156 dwellings with a wide variety of typologies . MRDV created a distinctive silhouette by grouping nine blocks. The articulation of these blocks is apparent in the exterior with a palette, of stone, concrete and tile, and red metal red strip of red indicate the circulations, staircases and corridors. The way the nine parts are stacked and joined together, make up a new towering impressive ‘superblock’ (MVRDV). Blanca Lleó Asociados (Madrid) was the local studio that was responsible for executing the project on site.

is perhaps one the best contemporary project in Madrid. A whole new complex that recovered severeal prexisting buldings on site that were in a good condition. The former building with the new ones are unified by a linear continuous facade that is a very original compositions of irregular, still “aerodinamic” brise-soleis. This is a solar protection system of beautiful aesthetics. The space between the buildings, like in a green village in itself, have corridors, patios full gardens and streets. In the interior, we will see as we aproach later the complex by foot, stands out a major circular plaza. It is the main “public” space or for the complex, where we find the main central building: A transparent , also circular high rise building, which has become a north landmark for the territory known as the “sail ” (in Spanish vela) as the whole complex was a futuristic sail boat.

This sail is orientated in relation to the sun path, to minimice sun exposure during the summer season. We wont be granted permission to enter the complex, but first we may appreciate its presence from the distance. We will also get closer to the facade and from the perimeter, as it is so permeable, look into the streets and main plazza.

Rafael de La-Hoz built this free-standing construction with a triangular plan where the supporting structure of the slabs is extracted to the outside, configuring a large latticework that protects of solar radiation. The office building has an above-ground area of 14,299 square meters distributed over five floors, as well as two underground floors with 450 parking spaces. The complex is crowned by a roof that includes sports facilities.

The construction has obtained the LEED Platinum Core & Shell certification, the highest distinction awarded by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), and the five-star DIGA (Distinction Indicator of the Degree of Accessibility) accessibility certification, from the Shangri-La Foundation.

EMT (Municipal Transport Agency) Headquarters (2004) designed by Estudio Canno Lasso, a well known architectural studio based in Madrid. The building was a first- prize competition and hides a peculiar bridge structure:  we could be granted access to the mechanical top floor to examine the two massive steel beams where the floor slabs are suspended from.  The view from that point will let us see its proximity to the Atocha Station at the south end of the Recoletos-Prado Axis, where we started.

A PAUs are new urban planning projects developed on land that previously had no urban program, enabling this area to be urbanised.  They are often areas that result from the building of new ring roads, empty gaps between them, and other existing urban centers, as it is the case of this PAU of Vallecas or Carabanchel that we will be goin to in the afternoon, both built in between the existing municipal villages of Vallecas (yesturday) or Carabanchel and the M40 ring road. PAU´s have being the response to the scarcity of housing that the city has suffered for the last 20 years.

It is a skin of black zinc scales (escamas)in horizontal strips that slide over each other with a slight offset and in which the holes are inserted with the intention of not making the floor levels evident. Constructively, the zinc facade becomes the central argument not only because of its material execution but also as an energy efficiency strategy. A minimum maintenance solution is proposed, in a transventilated position, which facilitates the transpiration of the facade, protects the building from the infiltration of rainwater and prevents interstitial condensation. It involves the optimization of the thermal and acoustic insulation of the building, which, being located on the outer face of the bricks enclosure, avoids possible thermal bridges.

Built area: 15.451 sqm. The project builds a total of 132 one- and two-bedroom homes for a building area of 9000 m2 plus 300 for commercial use on the ground floor.

The project is generated with the intention of answering two fundamental questions:
1.- Strict compliance with the urban planning regulations of the P.G.O.U.M. The plot is located in a newly created area, in the expansion of Vallecas, where the absence of notable preexistences establishes an isotropic framework of uncertain nature, where only neighborhood relations prevail.

In this area, urban planning regulations emerge as the only link capable of generating a common context. The alignments, the chamfer, the setback of the attics, the height of the building…; we make these parameters the image of our building…; nothing more is intended. We understand the regulations as a code of good neighborliness.

In the particular approach of the competition in which four soloists perform the same piece, the regulations must be the score that guides their interpretation and guarantees a rhythmic and harmonious melody.

The chamfer, usually a single, slave geometry, becomes in our project a “model” of section to be applied in the first volume to comply with the other regulatory parameters, the three-meter setback in attics, the buildability… It is therefore done , of obligation, virtue, and thus, multiple chamfers generate and characterize the morphology of the final volume. Internally, these inclined planes generate attractive double-height spaces, which give the homes a spatial quality superior to the characteristic standards of v.p.o.

2.- Formalization of a neutral, isotropic volume that allows two unknown neighbors to be attached to both sides of it. The chamfers, their edges and inclined planes, as well as the surface materialization proposed for the facades, aim to generate a “backdrop”, ideally informal, without architecture (without a recognizable number of floors, without formal distinction of openings per floor and use to that serve…), almost a rock, a geography, a vertical firm on which the neighboring architectures rest.

The façade is resolved with a single opening, which, placed in different positions, generates a continuous mantle, like a sky of uniform stars behind which the different rooms of the house are situated indifferently. Internally, the number of openings and their position characterize the different rooms, clothesline, living room, and bedrooms.

In the hollow-type, true protagonist of the façade, the now classic separation of uses, ventilation-lighting, is emphasized with the incorporation of two different types of glass, translucent and transparent, which introduce a new variable: the different degree of transparency , which qualifies the vision towards the outside and enriches the luminosity of the interior environment.

In the plan, we avoid the characteristic solutions of a communication core and two symmetrical homes on both sides, or the only orientation generated by the gallery typology. A “cluster” scheme is proposed, with three homes per communication core, which optimizes the number of these and is consistent with the formal isotropy of the volume in which the homes are inserted. The wet rooms resolve into a longitudinal central spine, located asymmetrically in plan.

With patio, perhaps a reinterpretation of those in Entrevias (1959) by Saenz de Oiza.

Looking towards the south-west, in the fringe of the new urban development where our plot is sited, in the limit with the harsh and beautiful yellow and brown, karstic and gypsum semi-wastelands, we have remembered the work of Benjamín Palencia and the Escuela de Vallecas 1930s painters; their capacity to insufflate with poetic beauty their reading of this dry and emaciated landscapes that sign the end of Madrid and the beginning of the La Mancha infinity.

Looking towards these views self-protected, moving away from the repetitive urban grid, becomes the project’s primal gesture. But this drive is produced through a green veil, materialized in a lightweight frame to support deciduous species that will provide with the necessary shadow and muffle the project’s solitude.

In typological terms, the layout proposes the transformation of a generic row of terraced houses into patio houses, by means of working out house, garden, private open spaces and solid party walls as integrated wholes. Introducing the atavistic organizational patter of the patio-house as an alternative to the anonymity of Madrid’s new urban developments.

The project has obtained Breeam® Certificate and is developed along demanding sustainable requirements, incorporating multiple devices in its typological and material performance.

The Old Slaughterhouse was designed and constructed by the Municipal Architect  Luis Bellido in 1908-1928. However, it was only in 2005, when the special development plan was fixed to allow architectural development of the site, that it was truly transformed, and included some of very interesting contemporary parts, it is now a hub for cultural events and spaces that we will be able to visit. The most interesting parts that we will focus in are:

• Film Libraryand Cinema by the Jose María Churtichaga y de la Cuadra Salcedo (2011) Five years of rehabilitation and remodeling work, according to the project developed by architects José María Churtichaga and Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo, transformed the old refrigerators and boiler of the municipal slaughterhouse into Cineteca Madrid. Is a very different to those previous projects and that stands out for the innovative way to light up the interior space. He used of a simple water house that integrates a led light system to illuminate the interior of the main cinema projection space, also the staircase that leads to the film library. , which was inaugurated on September 21, 2011
• Itermediae, by Arturo Franco who was responsible for renovating the principal naves of slaughterhouse and the lobbies. In this refurbishing project which cleaned the interior spaces and left them pretty much intact, dominated the use of iron and glass as the main new materials employed in this, still strong and clear, but minimal intervention, which influenced the later projects to come such as:
• La Casa del Lector (the Readers Home) a fine contemporary project that integrates two naves by the beautiful use of large steal beam / brides and glass, designed by Gª Abril (we may say, she was also influenced here by Arturo Franco).

This 2004 international competition was won by the Design Team M-Rio Arquitectos which was composed by  West 8 (landscape architects from Rotterdam) as responsible for the masterplan and Rubio & Alvarez-Sala + Burgos & Garrido + Porras & Lacasta, three top local Spanish architecture studios that took care of the design and detailed partial plans.

Completed in 2007, the Burial of the M-30 ring road provided a marvellous opportunity for Madrid to transform itself. It has allowed the banks of the Manzanares River that used to be on the surface occupied by a highway that run parallel on both sides of the river banks to be recovered completely.

On one side, the traffic has being re-conducted underground through a system of tunnels that span more than 12 km in length, that have solved not only the traffic of the territory, but on the surface recovered the ecological system while improving the live quality of not only those leaving next to the River, but also, those in the other parts of the city that now come to enjoy this now healthy, clean and quiet natural space that is now full of live.

It is now a new natural system that at different scales, has integrated new, and remodelled previous, structures such as bridges, public spaces, and historical parks, and other pre-existing buildings and municipal facilities that have been now transformed into cultural facilities.

Shell bridges (2007-2011) by West 8, designed as heavy concrete domes with a rough structure, are in them selves a piece of art with, one hundred cables carry the delicate steel deck as if they were whalebones. The interior domed ceiling displays the artwork of the Spanish artist Daniel Canogar. The lighting incorporated in the edges of the ceiling illuminates the artwork and the deck by reflection. These shell bridges connect the the Arganzuela Park, on the Slaughterhouse side, with the Salon de Pinos with will lead us near, on the other side, to the popular Usera District, where we could continue to with the four hour tour to finish visiting the Social Housing Poblado of Almendrales (1963-66) by Carvajal/Corrales/García de Paredes/Molezún, worth visiting to conclude this great tour with the unknown and non-touristic following masterpiece:

It’s interior will surprise us by the repetition of the columns that may remind us to he Mosque of Cordoa and the repetition of the overhead light natural skylight system. This project is another reason to choose, the option that includes all the contents here displayed, the full 4h tour so that to finish our itinerary with this top quality and elegant project

A very contemporary piece of architecture, like a sculpture, the  building itself is a series of abstract volumes with clean lines and white, transparent spaces.  Openings are introduced from above capturing the natural light directly into interior glass patios,  while maintaining the exterior sculptural volumetric composition. Minimalistic and limpid spaces for a clean new and modern health system. 

The promotion has as beautifully integrated comunal solar tubular heating sytem on the south facade.

The urban landscape, to the park, and to the roads around it. The task is not just to comply with social housing requirements, but also to study the way of making the most of the planning capacity of the constructed volume for the benefit of the city.

In 2003 the city council acquired the land where the warehouse was located. Between 2009 and 2011, the rehabilitation of the ship and its surroundings was carried out. To do this, it was completely restored, the coverings were removed and a new and original façade was created with colored lattices. Next to the ship, a new tower was built that follows its aesthetics, complementing the complex’s facilities.

Finally La Nave has become “an urban innovation space where different events are held.

Carabanchel has become a reference housing laboratory because it cloisters numerous unique projects designed by international architects such as Tom Mayne (Morphosis US) and Alejandro Zaera (FOA, London) and others.  The reason why we find so many experimental projects here is because in the present, the Municipal Land and Housing Agency of Madrid are working in changing the historical Spanish mentality of social housing in Spain being of inferior class and quality.  Their strategy for last decade has been to create international competitions and hire renowned architects:

1. Dosmasuno Arquitectos (2008)

In the area we find other innovative projects, some of them designed by young architects based in Madrid, as it is the case of Ignacio Borrego, who was a colleague at the School of Architecture I used to teach at here in Madrid.  He was concerned with the relationship that the building had with the pine forest on the west side of the plot.  That is the reason why he pushed the volumes towards those edges of the site, leaving an inmensus courtyard in the back were we can find an interesting composition of  cantilevered volumes that are the result of an exploration on how a two bedroom typologies into three and four bedroom by the plug-in of modular units in the  back façade.

2. ACM Architects (2010)

By Alxu Anann, Andres Cánovas & Nicolas Mauri, a first price proposal won by a local team of young architects. Very strong in concept “conteiner” housing typologies, large colourful block with a central patio, which includes a beautiful cousy park in the centre.

3. Foreign Office Architects FOA (2007)

The bamboo box is housing project designed by Alejandro Zaera Polo.  He is a Spanish architect based in London and has being a architectural tutor at on of the most prestigious international schools of architecture, the Architectural Association.  His studio is well known for designing the Yokohama Port Terminal. The material he has used in the facade is bamboo.  The different twi and three bedroom typologies are ”pasantes”, ie. all have both east and west orientations resulting in very long pieces that can be easily identified in the floor plans.

The Arganzuela Bridge (also known as Perrault Bridge) which is displayed in cover photo of this page, is located in the central part of the Arganzuela Park. It has an important presence, can be seen from the distance, beautifully lighten at nigh. Designed by French Architect Dominique Perrault in 2011, it costed costed about 13.6M€ it is composed of two tubular steel segments that span 278 m, allowing pedestrian and bicycle circulation from the south to the north river bank and viceversa. This transitional space large enough to incorporate in his interior, and in between its segments, public space.

Competition 1978-1980, first prize restricted competition. Project 2001, construction 2006.

Considered one of the most important and influential architects in Spain during the first half of the 20th century, Antonio Palacios was responsible for some of the most emblematic buildings in Madrid that helped transform the old Baroque town into a modern metropolis.

Antonio Palacios designed and constructed quite a number of projects and building through out Madrid, but the most important ones are located in the Gran Vía.. 

In this area we find the three of the most espectacular and Central three pieces of his work, which are:the Circle of Fine Arts, Comercial Industrial Bank, and of course, the Communication Palace (all three built by Palacios between 1907-17) .

Here, the objective was to change the scale street and the public spaces between the buildings that Antonio Palacios designed and constructed. His strategy was to built a sequence of monumental buildings that would transform, and enlarge, the overall scale of the streets and therefor the public space left in between.  All monumental spaces that will give you a very different and impressive perspective of Madrid’s most brilliant modern period.

The result are grand spaces and grand public spaces. Antonio Palacios was therefore responsible for the transformation of Madrid to become one of the main and more modern European cities.

During the 18th century, noble families started to built palaces surrounded by gardens, like the Buenavista Palace which now is the Headquarters for the Ministry of Defense.  It is located in the CIBELES PLAZA.  In the center of this plaza we find Madrid’s most popular fountain, also from the 18^th century.  It is one of the cities mayor symbols, with the Cibeles Goddess ridding a chariot pulled by lions.  From here we have great panoramic views framed by the Linares Palace (nowadays headquarters for Casa de América), the Communication Palace (1919) by Antonio Palacios, and the Bank of Spain (which is a late 19^th century).

 is a great sample of neoclassic urbanism.  King Carlos III with his European ideas, gave Madrid in the 18th century an splendour never seen before.  He completely remodelled Madrid equipping it with a public space appropriate for its condition as a capital.  For this project he selected the best architects of the Court.  Hermosilla, Ventura Rodríguez, Sabatini, Villanueva, planed, cleaned, ornamented and built, a Paseo in the shape of a racetrack, with two big fountains, Cibeles and Neptuno on both extreme, and a third one in the centre, the one dedicated to Apollo (you know, Greek mythological gods and goddesses). 

To complete the project, the Botanical Garden, the Academy for Natural Sciences (now the Prado Museum) and the Astronomic Observatory.  The boulevard (Paseo del Prado) was used already in the XVI century as a place to go for a walk in the outskirts of the city. It became a social place to meet and being seen, in summary, the perfect place to show off the new Bourbonic ideals.

This area is one of the most elegant residential area of Madrid, surrounded by señorial buildings, luxury hotels and old places, some of them transformed into museums, like the Thysse –Bornemisza Museum.  It is located in what used to be the Villahermosa palace, a neoclassic late 18^th century building refurbished by the architect Rafael Moneo in the late 80s to exhibit the magnificent collections that the Spanish Ministry of Culture acquired from the Baron Thyssen.

, where we see how the classic French style was very fashionable those days.  Same thing for the Palace Hotel built in 1912, both grand hotels designed by French architects (by Mevves). 

So, the Prado Museum was originally not a museum but a the Academy of Natural Sciences.  Only later King Fernando VII transformed the project to incorporate the painting collections from the Austria’s and the Bourbons. 

The new extension to the museum is from 2007 by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo.  It is located in the back of the original building, integrating into the museum the abandoned cloister of San Jerónimo del Real Church (1612).  Underneath the cloister Moneo projected a three-story skylight as the central space for the temporary exhibitions. Door Artist Cristina Iglesia.

Caixa Forum is the result of the transformation of the former Mediodía Power Station, a hallmark of late 19th century industrial architecture that still stands in the city’s old quarter, into Caixa Forum Madrid, its new social and cultural headquarters in Madrid, designed by the partnership Herzog and de Meuron, winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2001.  The transformation was indeed a surgical operation. The Swiss architects demolished the original roof and interiors. They cut away the granite base of the brick exterior walls, creating the illusion that the building floats in mid-air, hovering over a covered entry plaza. A tour of the building will show the contrast between the flexible character of the exhibition spaces and the spatial complexity of the upper floor with its restaurant and offices.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Reina Sofia was the old hospital of San Carlos, built by Carlos III (designed by Fernández Alba, Vázquez de Castro and Iñiguez de Onzoño). This solid building presents a strong and austere facade only animated by the glass exterior elevators.  On the left of this building we see the extension to the Museum, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel in 2002, a contemporary structure that covers a series of glass containers that host the museums temporary exhibitions, a library and an auditorium.

is a contemporary intervention that with this clean volume that dialogues with the geometry of the facade of the Royal Palace, brings the set of elements composed with the Royal Palace and the Cathedral in a perfect composition that integrates them both into a single complex, now perfectly unified and completed. Years after its conception and competition, the museum has been inaugurated in the summer of 2023 and we can finally be visited internally.

Although originally designed to display tapestries and carriages, it is finally intended to also house luxury objects, furniture, sculpture, architectural elements, paintings and other pieces of art or history that the different kings of Spain treasured throughout their history.

Once the building work was completed in 2015, the interior fittings and museography remained. The opening date, however, originally set for 2014,​ was postponed on several occasions: at the end of 2015 or 2016,​ 2018,​ 2020​ and 2022.​ Finally, in June of this last year, it was announced that it would open in the summer of 2023 under the name “Gallery of the Royal Collections”.
Throughout these years, the museographic plan has also undergone important modifications. According to the 1998 decree, the museum had to display the collections thematically: tapestries (9,500 m²), 18 historical carriages and vehicles (8,000 m²)19 and palatine or sumptuary arts (7,000 m²). However, in 2016, José Luis Díez, new director of Royal Collections, presented a new exhibition project in which a chronological tour of reigns was followed: the medieval dynasties and the Austrians in the first level (-1), the Bourbons in the second level (-2) and carriages and temporary exhibitions on the third level (-3). Likewise, the upper level (0), at the level of the Plaza de la Armería, would be used to receive visitors, in our case, as a group that enters through the -3 leve, to exit.

we find tall towers like the Torre de Madrid (Madrid Tower) and that dominate the plaza like the Edificio de España (Building of Spain) that were constructed in the 1950s as a classic hotel and commercial gallery that contrast with other contemporary hotels in the same square. In the centre we will find a statue dedicated to Miguel Cervantes and his famous novel “Don Quixote”. All of this contained in the 62 million euros renovation of this public space (2019-21) by Porras Lacasta winners of the first price of the competition of ideas promoted by the City Council of Madrid, under the motto “Welcome mother Nature“

 a. Estilo Palacio del Louvre (Paris)
b. Residencia Real 1931, ahora recepciones oficiales – Zarzuela

a. Proyecto Original Neogótico Arq. Marqués de Cubas. – Crípta
b. Parado hasta mediados del S.XX y se acaba en estilo neoclásico

Considered one of the most important and influential architects in Spain during the first half of the 20th century, Antonio Palacios was responsible for some of the most emblematic buildings in Madrid that helped transform the old Baroque town into a modern metropolis.

Antonio Palacios designed and constructed quite a number of projects and building through out Madrid, but the most important ones are located in the Gran Vía.. 

In this area we find the three of the most espectacular and Central three pieces of his work, which are:the Circle of Fine Arts, Comercial Industrial Bank, and of course, the Communication Palace (all three built by Palacios between 1907-17) .

Here, the objective was to change the scale street and the public spaces between the buildings that Antonio Palacios designed and constructed. His strategy was to built a sequence of monumental buildings that would transform, and enlarge, the overall scale of the streets and therefor the public space left in between.  All monumental spaces that will give you a very different and impressive perspective of Madrid’s most brilliant modern period.

The result are grand spaces and grand public spaces. Antonio Palacios was therefore responsible for the transformation of Madrid to become one of the main and more modern European cities.

A large glass dome rises as a five-hundred-tonne roof, forming the so-called “Crystal Gallery” composed of a triangular mesh. This vault of irregular geometry shelters visitors with its almost two thousand five hundred square meters of glass. The cover was made by the German company Schlaich Bergermann und Partner in the period 2008 and 2009.

Room 214. Lectures:

• Everything happens somewhere, Understanding geodata as a service. Mr Juan Jesús Cerezo Arillo, Head of Process Integration Service. Subdirectorate General of Innovation and Urban Information. Directorate General for Strategic Planning. He an Architect in Building and Urban Planning from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He collaborated in the basic and execution projects of the hospitals of Zamora and León, as well as numerous health centers.
• Urban transformation of school environments with climate criteria. Ms Irene García García. Head of the Climate Change Department. Sub-Directorate General for Energy and Climate Change. General Directorate for Sustainability and Environmental Control.
• Paseo verde (Green Walk). Mr. Adriano García Loygorri , Head of the Construction Department of the Directorate General for Mobility Planning and Infrastructures.

The Francisco Giner de los Ríos Foundation was created in 1916 with the mission of safeguarding the heritage of the Free Education Institution (ILE), created by the pedagogue Francisco Giner de los Ríos to defend academic freedom and an education independent of official dogmas A century after the death of Giner de los Ríos, the foundation opens a new headquarters in Madrid located on the same plot of Paseo del General Martínez Campos with an extension modern building to an adjacent plot acquired by donation. The result of a public competition of ideas called in 2004, the project has as its central theme the recovery of the garden as a center of activity of the Free Education Institution. It stands out for being an irregular volumetry of transparent construction covered by a skin of steel construction bars and for its surprising and beautiful underground auditorium that is accessed directly from the central patio and garden. Today they have an event and for this reason we cannot visit it today.

Originally built in the late 40’s and has since then suffered quite an intensive number of renovations and extensions. 2012 the international competition of ideas was opened and four team where invited: 1. Lamela (local Spanish who did the previous extension to the Stadium in 2001-06) and Populous. 2. Rafael Moneo (local) with Herzog & De Meuron. 3. Norman Foster + Rafael de la Hoz. 4. GMP Architect (Gerkan, Marga und Partner, German – Hamburg) +  Ribas & Ribas + L35 (both local from Barcelona), that won. 2020 starts steel structure/ 2023 finishing construction and stainless steel skin. which is at the present, in the last phase construction, a complete renovation with a new, over imposed steel structure and stainless-steel membrane that completely covers the original building, has led the icon of one of the most important football teams of the world, to also become one of the most modern stadiums of the world.