Architecture of Madrid

Very little medieval architecture is preserved in Madrid, and most of it is located inside the Almendra Central. Historical documents show that the city was walled and had a castle (the Alcázar) in the same place where the Royal Palace now stands. Among the few preserved medieval buildings are the mudejar towers of San Nicolás and San Pedro el Viejo churches, the palace of Luján family (located in the Plaza de la Villa), the Gothic church of St. Jerome, part of a monastery built by the Catholic Monarchs in the 15th century, and the Bishop's Chapel.

Nor has Madrid retained many examples of Renaissance architecture, except for the Cisneros house (one of the buildings flanking the Plaza de la Villa), the Bridge of Segovia and the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales, whose austere exterior gives no idea of the magnificent art treasures inside.

• 
  Casa de los Lujanes
• 
  Casa de Cisneros

When Philip II moved his court to Madrid in 1561, a series of reforms began, reforms that aimed to transform the town into a capital city worthy of the name. These reforms were embodied in the Plaza Mayor, designed by Juan de Herrera (author of El Escorial) and Juan Gómez de Mora, characterized by its symmetry and austerity, as well as the new Alcázar, who would become the second most impressive royal palace of the kingdom.

Many of the historic buildings of Madrid were built during the reign of the Habsburgs. The material used was mostly brick and the humble façades contrast with the elaborate interiors. Juan Gómez de Mora built notable buildings such as Casa de la Villa, Prison of the Court, the Palace of the Councils and Royal Convent of La Encarnación. The Buen Retiro Palace was a vanished work by Alonso Carbonel, today on the grounds of the Buen Retiro Park, with beautiful rooms decorated by the best artists in times of Philip IV (Velázquez, Carducci, Zurbarán). Imperial College become an important institution run by the Jesuits, and the model dome of the church would be imitated in all Spain, thanks to the cheap materials used in its construction.

Canalejas Square

Pedro de Ribera was one of the most important architects in Madrid of the pre-Bourbon era. Ribera introduced Churrigueresque architecture to Madrid, characterized by ornamental overload on their covers, as an altarpiece. The History Museum, the Cuartel del Conde-Duque, the church of Montserrat and the Bridge of Toledo are the best examples.

The arrival of the Bourbons marked a new era in the city. Ruins of the burned Alcazar of Madrid was replaced by the grand Royal Palace of Madrid commissioned by the first Spanish Bourbon, Philip V of Spain, a palace more in line with the French taste. Filippo Juvarra, an architect specializing in the construction of royal palaces, was chosen to design the new palace. His design was inspired by Bernini's design rejected for the Louvre Palace in Paris. Juvarra died before the work began, and the project was substantially modified by his disciple Giovainni Battista Sacchetti. Philip V tried to complete the vision of urbanization of Madrid initiated by King Philip II, which included a bridge spanning a large ravine, linking The Royal Alcázar to the southern part of town. Philip V would never see the bridge even begin and neither would several of his successors. It wasn't built until the 19th century and is called the Segovia Viaduct. Other buildings of the time were the St. Michael's Basilica and the Church of Santa Bárbara.

King Charles III of Spain was more interested in beautifying the city. He was an enlightened monarch and endeavored to convert Madrid into one of the great European capitals. He pushed forward the construction of the Prado Museum (designed by Juan de Villanueva). The building was originally intended to serve as a Natural Science Museum. Charles III was also responsible for design of the Puerta de Alcalá, the Royal Observatory (Juan de Villanueva), the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Basilica of San Francisco el Grande (Francesco Sabatini), the Casa de Correos in Puerta del Sol, the Real Casa de la Aduana (Francesco Sabatini) and the General Hospital by Sabatini (now houses the Reina Sofia Museum and Royal Conservatory of Music). The Paseo del Prado, surrounded by gardens and decorated with neoclassical statues inspired by mythological gods, is an example of urban planning. The Duke of Berwick ordered Ventura Rodríguez the construction of the Liria Palace.

Subsequently, the Peninsular War, the loss of colonies in the Americas, and the continuing coups prevented the city from developing interesting architecture (Royal Theatre, the National Library of Spain, the Palace of the Senate and the Congress). In the slums of Madrid during this time, a kind of substandard house was developed that today has a special historical charm: an example is the corralas, which currently still exist in the neighborhood of Lavapiés.

The Gran Vía showcases patterns ranging from Vienna Secession style, Plateresque, Neo-Mudéjar, Art Deco and others

From the late 19th century until the Civil War, Madrid modernized and built new neighborhoods and monuments, both in the capital and in neighboring towns. In the mid-19th century the expansion of Madrid developed under the Plan Castro, resulting in the neighborhoods of Salamanca, Argüelles and Chamberí. Arturo Soria conceived the linear city and built the first few kilometers of the road that bears his name, which embodies the idea. Ricardo Velázquez Bosco designed the Crystal Palace and the Palace of Velázquez in the Retiro Park. Secundino Zuazo built the Palace of Music and the Casa de las Flores. The Bank of Spain was designed by Eduardo Adaro and Severiano Sainz de la Lastra. Meanwhile, the Marquis of Cubas began the Almudena Cathedral project, which was to be a neo-Gothic church with neo-Romanesque cloister. Alberto de Palacio designed Atocha Station. Las Ventas Bullring was built in the early 20th century, as the Market of San Miguel (Cast-Iron style). Finally, Delicias Railway Station is the oldest example of this kind of infrastructure according to the model of Henri de Dion.

The Neo-Mudéjar was a widely spread style in Madrid in the 19th century; sometimes combined with Gothic revival, it was captured in religious buildings such as the Church of San Fermín de los Navarros or the Church of la Paloma as well as in civil ones.[6]

The last decade of the 19th century brought a Nationalist reaction in Architecture, represented in two revival styles: the neo-plateresque and the neo-baroque.[7] José Urioste Velada and José López Sallaberry were stand-out architects of the neo-plateresque. The former was the author of a number of monumental gates and following his comeback from Paris, many private houses, while the latter was the author of the Blanco y Negro Building at Serrano Street.[7] While chiefly developed in the early 20th century in Madrid, the neo-baroque was some of the last examples of 19th-century revivalist architecture. Some exponents of the style were Eduardo Reynals and Juan Moya Idígoras.[7]

Modernismo (the Spanish expression of Art-Nouveau) was introduced in Madrid in the early 20th century, first with a timid nod in iron balconies (such as the house of Tomás y Salvany) and then with markedly modernista buildings such as the José Grases Riera's Palacio Longoria or the Manuel Medrano's House of the Marquise of Villamejor.[8]

Antonio Palacios, described by Fernando Chueca as the "most powerful figure in the Spanish architecture of the first third of the 20th century and the most difficult figure to label and fit under conventional parametres",[9] left an unavoidable imprint in the city architectural history, building a series of eclectic buildings. Some examples are the Palace of Communication (Palacio de Comunicaciones), the Fine Arts Circle of Madrid (Círculo de Bellas Artes) and the Río de La Plata Bank.

• Selection of works by Palacios in Madrid
• 
  The Palacio de Comunicaciones
• 
  The Círculo de Bellas Artes
• 
  Banco del Río de la Plata
• 
  Casa Matesanz
• 
  Hospital de Maudes

Also the construction of Gran Vía began in the early 20th century, with the task of freeing the old town. They used different styles that evolved over time: The Metropolis building is built in French style and the Edificio Grassy is eclectic, while Telefónica Building is art deco, with baroque ornaments. The Carrión (or Capitol) Building is expressionist, and the Palace of the Press, another example of art deco.

The Banco Bilbao was a notable case of late eclecticism in the 1920s, while the Palacete Cort and the Cine Doré were examples of late Secession in the city.[10]

Modesto López Otero, adept to historicist lines, projected the notable La Unión y el Fénix Español building, influenced by North-American architects practicing the Mission Style in vogue by that time in the United States.[11]

The 1936–1939 Civil War interrupted the road to Modernity.[12]

Detail in the façade of the Moscardó Gym

Soon after the entry of the Francoist troops in Madrid signalling the end of the war, the new Mayor exhorted to the Madrilenians not to rest until Madrid became the "capital worthy of the New Spain, One, Great and Free, of the Imperial Spain forged by the Generalísimo, by the Armed Forces, by the militias, and by the rearguard, through the means of steel, through the means of blood, and through sacrifices.[13]

Already in June 1939, a meeting of the Assembly of Architects presided by prominent Falangist architect Pedro Muguruza convened in Madrid, and a document about the General ideas on the National Plan for Planning and Reconstruction was delivered later in the year, setting the lines of the immediate post-war architecture.[14] According to Pedro Bidagor, the author of the 1941 urban planning for the city, in the new regime there was no more "freedom before the State to do the works according the anyone's humour; there is no freedom between good and evil. Is it mandatory to perform up to maximum effort and endure maximum discipline to do things right".[15] A Directorate-General for Architecture was created in September 1939 following totalitarian lines.[16]

In the first years of the Francoist dictatorship, the regime adhered to some elements of the totalitarian architectural language, with a folkish mythification of the works of Juan de Herrera and Juan de Villanueva, captured in buildings such as the Luis Gutiérrez Soto's Ministry of the Air, reminiscent of El Escorial. During these years, in the Spanish case the reactionary and Catholic conservative matrix largely prevailed over a purely Fascist architecture in the sense of the Roger Griffin's established link between modernity and Fascism.[17] The neo-herrerian style developed in the 1940s adapted in Spain the monumentality espoused by German and Italian fascist architectural styles, but it strayed from them in the sense that this style, very much looking to the past, remained far from the avant-garde.[18] The Teatro Clara Eugenia, a building strikingly following the style of Nazi's official architect Albert Speer was nonetheless erected in 1943 on the current day district of Hortaleza.[19]

• Instances of Early Francoism's historicism
• 
  Colegio Mayor San Pablo
• 
  Ministry of the Air
• 
  Edificio España
• 
  Arco de la Victoria
• 
  AECID headquarters

With the country ruined after the war, the Falange command had nonetheless high plans for the city and professionals sympathetic to the regime dreamed (based on an organicist conception) about the notion of building a body for the "Spanish Greatness" placing a great emphasis in Madrid, what they thought to be the imperial capital of the New State.[20] In this sense, urban planners sought to highlight and symbolically put in value the façade the city offered to the Manzanares River,[21] the "Imperial Cornice", bringing projects to accompany the Royal Palace such as the finishing of the unfinished cathedral (with the start of works postponed to 1950 and ultimately finished in the late 20th century), a never built "house of the Party" and many others.[22]

The Casa Sindical, often linked to the works of Giuseppe Terragni.[23]

Nonetheless, these delusions of grandeur caught up with reality and the scarcity during the Post-War and most of the projects ended up either filed, unfinished or mutilated, with the single clear success being the Gutiérrez Soto's Cuartel del Ejército del Aire.[24]

A sense of modernity was nonetheless later introduced at some point, with buildings such as the Cabrero & Aburto's Casa Sindical or the headquarters for the Alto Estado Mayor de la Defensa, by Gutiérrez Soto,[17] that, particularly in the first case, decidedly broke with traditionalist historicism.

1992 was a marked year for Spain. However, the Capital of Culture Madrid celebrated in 1992 did not have the meaning the Universal Exposition and the Summer Olympics had for Seville and Barcelona, respectively, and the city was left with no lasting icon of the year.[25] The most outstanding projects in the early 1990s were the reopening of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (project by Antonio Fernández Alba) and the renovation of the Atocha Train Station (by Rafael Moneo).[25]

• 
  Expansion of Atocha by Rafael Moneo
• 
  Elevators of the Reina Sofía Museum

The Gate of Europe, completed in 1996, described as a perfect representation of "all that went wrong with Spain's rapid integration into capitalism".[26]

In the last quarter of the 20th century skyscrapers appeared in the city such as Torre Picasso, designed by Minoru Yamasaki; Torres Blancas and Torre BBVA (both by Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza) and in the 1990s, the Gate of Europe, architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee. Moreover, in the 1990s construction was completed of the Cathedral of the Almudena. The National Auditorium of Music is a work of 1988.

In the 21st century, Madrid faces new challenges in its architecture. An old industrial warehouse is the Interpretation Centre of New Technologies, and the CaixaForum Madrid (Herzog & de Meuron) was a former power station.

Under the government of Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón the four tallest skyscrapers in Spain were built, and together form the Cuatro Torres Business Area (CTBA). The Manzanares river is crossed by new edge bridges, and work started on the International Convention Centre (Mansilla+Tuñón), an original round building, whose works remain paralyzed by the crisis. Caja Mágica (Dominique Perrault) sport centre was also built and the Reina Sofía Museum has been expanded with the help of Jean Nouvel.

Madrid Barajas International Airport Terminal 4, designed by Antonio Lamela, Richard Rogers and TPS Engineers, was inaugurated on 5 February 2006. Terminal 4 is one of the world's largest terminal areas, with an area of 760,000 square metres (8,180,572 square feet) in two separate terminals: a main building, T4 (470,000 square metres), and satellite building, T4S (290,000 square metres), which are separated by approximately 2.5 km (2 mi). The new terminal is meant to give passengers a stress-free start to their journey. This is managed through careful use of illumination, available by glass panes instead of walls and numerous domes in the roof which allow natural light to pass through. With the new addition, Barajas is designed to handle 70 million passengers annually.

Madrid Nuevo Norte is a long-delayed venture to reshape a significant portion of the northern central part of the city, with a focus on Chamartín railway station and surrounding areas. The project's current iteration includes several skyscrapers, a new Metro line, and a large-scale revaluation of neglected and disused land, with most of Chamartín's railway tracks to be moved underground. As of July 2020, construction works are scheduled to begin in 2021.[27]

• 
  Gran Vía 48
• 
  Ciudad BBVA
• 
  Barajas' Terminal 4
• 
  Campus Repsol
• 
  Cristalia 4A

The streets of Madrid have many outdoor sculptures. The Museum of Outdoor Sculpture, located in the Paseo de la Castellana, is dedicated to abstract works, among which the Sirena Varada (Strander Mermaid) by Eduardo Chillida.

Since the 18th century, the Paseo del Prado is decorated with an iconographic program with classical monumental fountains: the Fuente de la Alcachofa (Fountain of the Artichoke), the Cuatro Fuentes (Four Fountains), the Fountain of Neptune, the Fountain of Apollo and the Fountain of Cybele, all designed by Ventura Rodríguez.

The equestrian sculptures are particularly important, starting chronologically with two designed in the 17th century: the statue of Philip III, in the Plaza Mayor by Giambologna, and the statue of Philip IV, in the Plaza de Oriente (projected by Velázquez and built by Pietro Tacca with scientific advice from Galileo Galilei).

Many areas of the Buen Retiro Park (Parque del Retiro) are really sculptural scenography: among them are The Fallen Angel by Ricardo Bellver, and the Monument to Alfonso XII, designed by José Grases Riera.

In another vein are the neon advertising signs, some of which have acquired a historic range and are legally protected, such as Schweppes in Plaza de Callao or Tío Pepe in the Puerta del Sol, recently retired from its location for the restoration of the building.

• 
  Fountain of Neptune (Ventura Rodríguez)
• 
  Fountain of Cybele (Ventura Rodríguez)
• 
  Monument to Alfonso XII (José Grases Riera)
• 
  Strander Mermaid (Eduardo Chillida)

• 
  Philip IV (Pietro Tacca)
• 
  Fuente del Ángel Caído (Ricardo Bellver)
• 
  Cervantes Monument at Plaza de España (Madrid)

There is no evidence of the existence of bridges over the Manzanares during the time of al-Andalus (fords and pontoons were used instead).[28] There was a small "alcantarilla" (small bridge) crossing a creek that ran along what it is now the Calle de Segovia.[28] Some bridges (thought to be not particularly sound, as the chronicles mentioned the frequent repairs after river floods) were built as the city developed after the Christian conquest in the 11th century.[29] The first mentions to bridges were the puente Toledana and the puente Segoviana across the Manzanares and the puente de Viveros across the Jarama (located far from the city in the latter case),[30] but until Madrid did not become capital of the Habsburg Dynasty in the 16th century, no steady bridges able to resist the seasonal rise of the Manzanares were built.[29]

• 
  Puente de Segovia
• 
  Puente de los Franceses
• 
  Puente de Toledo
• 
  Puente de Arganzuela

During the reign of Philip II, the puente de Segovia, the first important stone bridge across the Manzanares,[31] was built from 1574 to 1584; initially projected by Gaspar de Vega, Juan de Herrera assumed the works and gave a new design to the structure after the decease of the former.[32]

Since the foundation of the city in the 9th century until the 19th century the viajes de agua (viage in Archaic Spanish), following the Persian technology of the Qanat introduced by the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, were the single infrastructure for water supply in the city.[33] The viajes comprised a network of draining wells and galleries, a conduction underground gallery and a network for distribution.[34] However the first written mentions of the viajes trace back to the early 13th century, during the Christian period in the Middle Ages.[35] By the middle of the 19th century, the network of viajes extended more than 124 km in length, the most important ones being those of Alto Abroñigal, Bajo Abroñigal, Alcubilla, Amaniel and Fuente Castellana.[36]

In the 19th century, the problems posed by water supply as the population increased, led to the construction of the Canal de Isabel II, bringing to the city the waters from the Lozoya River.[37] It was promoted by Juan Bravo Murillo, a technocrat who implemented crucial developments in the area of Public Works in the country.[38] The project was passed in 1851 and following the completion of the works, the Canal was inaugurated in 1858.[39]

• List of demolished buildings in Madrid
• Spanish architecture

Citations

Bibliography

• Bonet Correa, Antonio (2002). "Madrid y el Canal de Isabel II". Arbor. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. 171 (673): 39–74. doi:10.3989/arbor.2002.i673.1021. ISSN 0210-1963.
• Box, Zira (2012). "El cuerpo de la nación. Arquitectura, urbanismo y capitalidad en el primer franquismo (1)". Revista de Estudios Políticos. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. ISSN 0048-7694.
• Corella Suárez, Pilar (2004). "Dibujos para el puente de Segovia de los siglos XVII y XVIII" (PDF). Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. XLIV: 237–248.
• Guerra Chavarino, Emilio (2006). "Los viajes de agua de Madrid" (PDF). Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. XLVI. ISSN 0584-6374. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-09-20.
• Larson, Susan (2003). "Shifting modern identities in Madrid's recent urban planning, architecture and narrative". Cities. 20 (6): 395–402. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2003.08.005.
• Morales Segura, Mónica; Núñez Martí, Paz; Pérez Velasco, Eva; Segura Graiño, Cristina (2000). "Los puentes de Madrid en la Edad Media. Construcción y reconstrucciones" (PDF). In E. Rabasa, M. Tabales (ed.). Actas del Tercer Congreso Nacional de Historia de la Construcción, Sevilla, 26-28 octubre 2000, eds. A. Graciani, S. Huerta. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, SEdHC, U. Sevilla, Junta Andalucía, COAAT Granada, CEHOPU. pp. 705–709.
• Navascués Palacio, Pedro (1973). Arquitectura y arquitectos madrileños del siglo XIX (PDF). Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Madrileños. ISBN 84-500-5868-6.

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