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RUTA 1: TEMPLO BEBOD – CAFE GIJÓN (11 km)

9:00 Plaza España Urban Development (2019-21) by Porras Lacasta. All of this was part of the 62 million euros renovation of this public space . This studio won the first prize in the ideas competition promoted by the City Council of Madrid. The competition was held under the motto “Welcome mother Nature“.

9:20 Madrid River 12km urban development, competition 2004 completed 2007 won by M-Rio Architects.

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 (Gines Garrido General Director)+ 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 and bridges, public spaces, and historical parks, and other pre-existing buildings and municipal facilities that have been now transformed into cultural facilities that are well worth visiting. These are, together with some historic and 17 new singular pedestrian and bicycle walkways / bridges.

Refurbished and remodelled dams: 7 in total. The Madrid Río dams, built in the 1950s, date back to the Madrid Urban Development Plan of Franco’s dictatorship. Stylistically, they adopt a Herrerian style, with ornamental details reminiscent of the imperial architecture of Philip II. Their purpose was to regulate the river’s course and create the appearance of greater flow.

9:40 Centre for Hydrographic Studies (1963) by Miguel Fisac. The Hydrographic Studies Center (CEDEX), designed by Miguel Fisac, was inaugurated in 1963. This building is one of the most unique and charismatic of Fisac’s professional career and is famous for being a pioneer in the use of concrete and prefabrication in Spain, including his innovative “bone-beam” design for the roof of the Model Building.
The CEDEX is located in Madrid, near the Segovia Bridge, and is included in the context of Madrid Río.

10:00 The Arganzuela Bridge 2011 (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.

148 dwelings (2007) by Weil Arets and Nieto & Sobejano Architects in Usera, Madrid

10:15: El Ensanche de Madrid (1860)or the Widening of Madrid is also known as Plan Castro. In 1860, Carlos María de Castro presented the Castro Plan, which planned to demolish the old city fence, also known as the Fence of Philip the IV that surrounded Madrid (1625 and 1868), a brick and mortar structure that intended to control taxes and population. It was demolished in 1868 to allow Madrid for an ordered large urban expansion with a regular street and block structure, which started in 1871, and aimed to increase Madrid’s capacity from 275.000 to 450.000 habitants.

There are a few districts that were then built: In the North West, the Chamberi District which hosted upper middle classes, on the North East the Salamanca District which hosted higher upper middle class and to the South the Arganzuela District formed by working-class neighborhoods and shanty towns which was constructed between 1860 and 1931.

Extension to Queen Sofía Contemporary Art Museum (2005) by Jean Nouvel constructed between 2002 and 2005, it was inaugurated in September of 2005.

10:45 Caixa Forum (2008) 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 Prado Development 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.

Prado Museum extension (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. Bronce door by Cristina Iglesias.

Barrio de Salamanca is the bourgeois and exclusive district of Madrid, created in the second half of the 19th century as the heart of the Ensanche district of Madrid. It was conceived by José de Salamanca y Mayol (Marquees of Salamanca) as the most emblematic and successful manifestation of the widening urban project. It emerged to regulate the growth of an overcrowded and antiquated city, and the Salamanca district became the model for a more modern, hygienic, and luxurious Madrid, following the examples of European cities such as Paris.

11:00 / 11:30 Coffee Break

ETAPA 2: CAFE GIJÓN – INSTITUTO LIBRE DE ENSEÑANZA (3 Km)

12:00 / 12:30 Free Institution of Education (2015) by Cristina Diaz y Efren García (Amid09). The Foundation of Francisco Giner de los Ríos was created in 1916 with the mission of safeguarding the heritage of the Institution of Free Education (or Institución de Libre enseñanza – ILE), created by the pedagogue Francisco Giner de los Ríos.

This project resulted from a public competition of ideas initiated in 2004. It won the first prize from the “Professional School of Architects of Madrid” (COAM) in 2015.

The project’s central theme is the garden’s recovery. It serves as a center of activity for the Free Education Institution. The garden patio is conceived as a living space. It is defined as a meeting place. This aligns with the Institution’s legacy of outdoor sports, physical education, and connection to the landscape.

The building and the classrooms open towards this central interior space. The building dilutes its presence. It achieves this through the homogeneous and light treatment of the facades. These facades are wrapped with a lattice of several layers of thin, overlapping galvanised steel rods.

From this central and exterior space, a staircase emerges. Its railing stands out for using rods similar to those on the facade. This design reminds us of the handrails that Fernando Higueras designed at Colegio Estudio. It is one of the first modern schools of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE). This staircase descends to an underground space, so that its presence does not break.

ETAPA 3: ILE – MUSEO ABC (2KM)

ETAPA 3 option B: ILE – Café Oriente (3KM)

12:45 Landscaped Terraces Building (1973-75) by Higueras. In 1973, Fernando Higueras and Antonio Miró were commissioned to build housing for the Board of Military in Madrid. The site is located on the corner of Alberto Aguilera and San Bernardo, an area of the city center of undoubted historical value where it was essential to respect the alignment and volume of the surroundings. Higueras and Miró make an ambitious commitment, in which they propose a building with a heterodox image based on exposed concrete and vegetation on the façade.

13:15 ABC Center (2006-2010) by Aranguren & Gallegos serves as the new Headquarters for the ABC Foundation. It is also the Center of Drawing and Illustration. A great sample of contemporary architecture incorporated in the historic center.

ETAPA 4: MUSEO ABC – CAFE ORIENTE (2KM)

Cuartel of Conde Duque (Count Duque Barraks Quartel) early 18^th Century. Refurbishment (2010-11) by Carlos de Riaño Lozano… Read More

An exquisit detailed interior refurbishment, which was done in three phases, and includes: The Villa Archives, the Municipal Historical Library, the Víctor Espinós Musical Library, a Newspaper Municipal Library of Madrid, the Conde Duque Public Library or a Museum of Contemporary Art, among other uses that we will discover, some of them underground very strong aesthetic of archaeological and scenic character… 

Attention to the detailed and beautiful designs that perfectly integrates the pre-existing brick building with the new intervention, a beautiful underground dialog of dark and light with new materials such as steel glass and warm wood interiors in the case of theatrical spaces.

Text by the architect:

In 1717, Pedro de Ribera drew the first project of the Conde Duque barracks in Madrid. It had to provide answers for an ambitious program to house the more than 600 men and 400 horses of the Royal Guard. 

In 2004, with the drafting of the Plan Director, began a new adventure in the life of the Conde Duque, which finished with the completion of the works in 2011, after a total and coordinated renovation of the whole building. 

The first images of its naked interior were open naves of brick arches on granite pillars and at other levels, wrought columns and riveted beams. Clean and austere spaces covered with solid brick structures.  The powerful space called for an obvious solution: to maintain the skeleton, to remove additions and to concentrate the new interventions. The aim was to achieve a big neutral container where new timeless objects and specific elements could be situated.

The program proposed by the City of Madrid was aware of those premises and facilitated the task. It essentially wanted to create places of interaction, multi-use spaces and a small collection of venues for the development of activities (a concert hall, a theatre, an assembly hall…). The interior courtyards shape the vast and diverse program. They are also an opportunity to recover open spaces and to allow the indoors and outdoors flow. The building is still very hermetic towards the exterior, but these courts offer a friendly and accessible face. They mean the antechamber, the place of approach, the possibility of understanding.

FINISH ❤️🙏🏻✨✨🚲

List of buildings:

• Plaza España Urban Development (2019-21) by Porras Lacasta
• Royal Collection’s Galery (2006-2016, inaugurated 2023) Tuñon & Mansilla
• Madrid River (2004 competition, completed 2007)
• Centre for Hydrographic Studies (1963) by Miguel Fisac
• The Arganzuela Bridge (2011) by Dominique Perrault
• 148 Dwelings (2007) by Weil Arets
• Plan Castro (approved in 1860, started 1868)
• Extension to Queen Sofía Contemporary Art Museum (2005) by Jean Nouvel
• Caixa Forum (2008) by Herzog & Demeuron
• Prado Development (18^th Century) King Charls III
• Prado Museum Extension (2007) by Rafael Moneo
• Castelar Bldg (1977-1983) by Rafael de La-Hoz Arderius y Gerardo Olivares
• Free Institution of Education (2015) by Cristina Diaz y Efren García (Amid09)
• Landscaped Terraces Building (1973-75) by Fernando Higueras
• ABC Center (2006-2010) by Aranguren & Gallegos
• Count Duque Barraks Quartel (early 18^th Century, refurbishment 2010-11) by Carlos de Riaño Lozano