Madrid is unusual for a European capital city. Historically, it had no port, no cathedral, no university and no palace. Nor does it lie on a major river like other European capitals. Like Canberra, the city was chosen to be the capital because it is the geographic middle of the Iberian Peninsula.
The city developed over the centuries alongside short bursts of population growth – becoming a city with a “mix of contrasting styles,” our guide Werner Durrer tells the 2024 Dulux Study Tour group. The historic radial centre gives way to a modern gridded plan as the city grew along its outbound routes. Neoclassical mixes with influences from Berlin, Vienna and even Chicago. “The city has a huge tradition of ornament over monument,” Durrer said.
“What struck me so much was that every building is so diverse and there’s such a beautiful amenity in so many developments, particularly in central Madrid,” said Simona Falvo, one of five winners of the 2024 Dulux Study Tour.
Flynn Carr added, “One thing I found particularly interesting and engaging was how they’ve prioritised people within the urban landscape. The urban scale has tended to lend itself to having more plazas and open spaces.”
City-Park Madrid Rioby West 8, Burgos and Garrido, Porras La Casta, Rubio and Álvarez Sala.
Image:
Linda Cheng
An eight-lane highway beside the Manzanares river was buried underground, making way for a six-kilometre-long linear park, designed by Burgos and Garrido, Porras La Casta, Rubio and Álvarez Sala, and West 8, for the residents of surrounding areas. The care and consideration of the city’s public spaces goes hand-in-hand with the utilisation those spaces.
Much of Madrid’s urban fabric has developed in the 20th century – making it a surprisingly young city. Madrid’s population grew from one million just after the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, to a city of more than six million today.
“It’s younger than Sydney, if you look at it from that perspective,” Jamileh Jahangiri said, “but the city didn’t look disconnected, you could see the architecture of the new and old was representing the culture.”
“I think the best examples of contemporary architecture we saw were the museum projects that were engaging with existing building fabric and referencing it or responding to the form and type,” added Emma Chrisp.
Museum Caixa Forum by Herzog and De Meuron.
Image:
Linda Cheng
“The Caixa Forum, for example, retains that existing masonry heritage building and then does all these gymnastics to lift it up and then the top form of the building references the existing streetscape forms.”
The 2024 Dulux Study Tour winners were also impressed with some of the housing projects they visited in Madrid, particularly the Casa Girasol by Josep Antoni Coderch. The apartment complex built in 1966, “felt so contemporary,” said Chrisp, demonstrating the enduring relevance of good design.
Casa Girasol by J.A. Coderch.
Image:
Linda Cheng
On the final full day to Valladolid, past the fields of poppies, wildflowers and wind turbines. The group visited along the way a number of community projects by Óscar Miguel Ares of Contextos de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. In towns that were struggling to retain their young people, Ares’s projects, funded partly by the revenue from the turbines, combine multiple functions in one building while also creating places that the community proudly embraces.
The Ayuntamiento en Valverde De Campos combines municipal offices, council chambers, a café, and medical facilities on the same site, while the Piscinas Muncipales En Castromonte swimming pool is both a place of recreation and a meeting place with the kiosk able to open to the pool during the day and serve as a bar for the community at night.
Piscinas Muncipales En Castromonte by Contextos de Arquitectura y Urbanismo.
Image:
Linda Cheng
“The buildings seem to be buoyed by the other aspects of life taking place around them, rather than being these icebergs in public space or icebergs floating out in urbanity,” said Flynn Carr.
Ares said, “You may only get the opportunity to design one building for a particular place so it ought to do as much as it can to support that community.” He also said that architecture should be built for the people, rather than for images to be circulated on social media.
In reflecting on their time in Spain, the Dulux Study Tour winners found that the most successful architectural projects are culture-led, rather than design-led, as Mike Sneyd observed.
“The urban fabric is a product of the culture not the other way around,” he said. “Anything that is not embraced by the culture and the population is never effective.”
Jamileh Jahangiri added, “Sometimes we as designers want to force elements of community, but if we understand what really is the life of the city, then maybe what we can design becomes better.”
Linda Cheng is travelling with the 2024 Dulux Study Tour. Follow #2024DuluxStudyTour on social media and the blog.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
