11 architectural jewels that could disappear in Madrid

This week the Architecture Week has been celebrated in Madrid, an initiative to disseminate architectural heritage and bring it closer to citizens. If you were smart and signed up early, you will have been able to visit some of the buildings that have offered visits to the public - among others, the Madrid Tower or the BBVA Tower on Paseo de la Castellana. If not, next year you will have the opportunity again.

The event values ​​existing heritage. But not the one that has already disappeared or is about to disappear. Due to lack of protection, carelessness of the administrations or speculative tensions, many buildings or architectural ensembles are threatened

The Madrid, Citizenship and Heritage Association, created to defend the city's historical, artistic, cultural and natural heritage, includes a list of endangered places on its website, ordered according to the state of the property. It also includes heritage that has already been torn down.

We have compiled eleven buildings that still exist, but whose state is urgent to review because they are at risk of disappearing.

Historical Center of Hortaleza

The parish church of San Matías, located in the district of Hortaleza and built in the middle of the s. XIX, is one of the first examples of Neo-Mudéjar architecture in Madrid. However, it could soon be a Go Fit brand gym: the San Vicente de Paul religious congregation, owner of a large part of the district's historic center and promoter of the idea, got the go-ahead from the City Council's Historical Heritage Commission in 2015, which eliminated the structural protection that until then held back the project.

The building appears in the catalog of assets and protected spaces of the PGOUM, but the project went ahead without any allegations because nobody found out. When the news finally broke, the residents created the Platform in Defense of the Old Town. Despite this, it seems that the project will go ahead if its promoters do not change their minds, since the town planning department considers it "legally impeccable", according to El Salto Diario.

Casa de Campo Fair

Madripedia

From 1950 to 1975, the Country Fair was held every three years at the Casa de Campo: a folkloric contest attended by ranchers and farmers from all over Spain to display their products and customs. The fair was made up of different pavilions, each one representing a characteristic building of each province and designed by renowned architects such as Alejandro de la Sota or Miguel Fisac.

But with the end of the Franco regime the party ended and the pavilions fell into disuse. The venue became the property of the City Council and, over time, several of the remaining restaurants have been closing - including the mythical Currito and Guipúzcoa - affected by the crisis, loss of customers and high rents demanded by the council.

Currently there are 13 abandoned pavilions without any type of protection. In December 2017, a fire caused by Romanian squatters completely destroyed the old Guipúzcoa restaurant.

Variety Cinema of San Lorenzo del Escorial

Wikipedia Commons

This modernist building, located in San Lorenzo del Escorial, is one of the first examples of architecture for cinematographers. It closed in 2007. In 2013 a cultural association was set up with the aim of buying it and starting its recovery, which is estimated at 1.8 million euros.

11 architectural jewels that could disappear in Madrid

Shortly after, in May 2014, a young woman died when she entered and the ground gave way, because it is in ruins.

Los Gabrieles Tavern

h0n3yb33z on Flickr

Taberna Los Gabrieles is in the center, between Carrera de San Jerónimo and Calle del Prado. The space is important for its history - it was the meeting place for political figures, such as Primo de Rivera or Alfonso XII, and for the world of culture and especially flamenco, as it had a tablao - and for its tiles, which reflect scenes of customs and they were made by the Andalusian potters Enrique Guijo and Alfonso Romero. Its installation was paid for by wine companies that wanted to advertise on the premises.

An art historian, Natacha Seseña, called this place "the Sistine Chapel of Madrid's tile work."

The tiles were controversially restored: the company in charge tore them out and painted them elsewhere. In 2012, a group of squatters recorded a video in which a potter criticized the process, saying that "tiles have suffered more in restoration than in a hundred years here."

The tavern has been closed since 2004 and is for sale on Idealista for 3.5 million.

Hermitage of Our Lady of Lourdes

Madripedia

"It must have been built between 1891 and 1900," explains the Madrid Ciudadanía y Patrimonio website. "It was a brick building with a large metal dome that no longer exists, although the semicircular arch can still be seen, finished off at the top with bars and glass. On the sides of the main entrance there are two niches, blinded with cement, which were formerly windows. In the bell tower there was a small bell that warned the neighbors for the mass. The building must have been robbed on many occasions".

The hermitage, property of the Archbishopric of Madrid, is in a dilapidated state. In principle, it will be restored during the Madrid Nuevo Norte operation.

Hermitage of San Roque

Wikipedia Commons

Like the Hermitage of Our Lady of Lourdes, although older (from the 16th century), this hermitage is seriously deteriorated, although in recent years actions have been taken to prevent it from advancing (for example, the roof was covered). The hermitage preserves the original wooden coffered ceiling and Operation Madrid Nuevo Norte also intends to recover and preserve it.

Mansion of Ramón y Cajal

Selektia Living

The mansion in which Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal spent the last years of his life no longer exists: they are now luxury apartments. It is located at calle Alfonso XXII, 64, just behind the Atocha station and very close to the Retiro. The building dates from 1912 and was made by the architect Don Julio Martínez Zapata.

Attempts to stop the project - like this petition on Change.org - and take advantage of the space for a house-museum did not prosper. You can see renderings of the interior of the apartments in Idealista.

Vallet de Goytisolo House

Madrid City and Heritage

This house, located in the Arturo Soria neighborhood, is at risk of demolition: the owners consider that the original project has lost value and have a plan to tear it down and build a block of flats.

The last thing we know is that the City Council stopped its demolition last April, that it is considering including it in the Municipal Catalog of Protected Assets and Spaces and that the General Directorate of Heritage (depending on the Community) refused to protect it when considering that "it cannot be affirmed that it is the work of Coderch," according to El Mundo.

The house was commissioned by the academic and was built in 1956. "Currently it is preserved with small modifications that have partly tarnished the clarity and power of the original building," says the Fundación Arquitectura. Even so, the defenders of its conservation argue that its architectural quality and the personage that inhabited it are enough not to demolish it.

Original elements of the Gran Vía station

Gran Vía station is under construction. And last August the workers found the original elevator shaft, designed by the architect Antonio Palacios in 1917.

Since the renovation of the station includes the construction of a replica of the original temple (the one you see in the photo), defenders of the heritage ask that the discovery be respected and integrated into the new station.

The Community of Madrid had always denied that these original elements were still there, but the Madrid, Citizenship and Heritage Association agreed in February of this year, before the works began, to photographs that proved that they were.

"The elevator was in operation until 1970. The construction of line 5, with connection at Gran Vía station, involved the connection with the existing line and the creation of new accesses for which "then modern and novel-escalators were implanted. These new accesses led to the closure and disuse of the original ones from 1919 and 1934, remaining condemned behind partitions that blocked their initial connections with the line 1 station," explains the association.

The matter is now in the hands of Patrimony, which has to decide if it is necessary to preserve the remains and modify the reform project.

Legazpi Fruit and Vegetable Market

The Legazpi Central Fruit and Vegetable Market was in operation until it moved to Mercamadrid.

The COAM Madrid Architecture Guide tells us that "between 1927 and 1935, Luis Bellido, head of the Municipal Architecture Services, programmed a plan for new central and district markets that he developed with a team formed by Javier Ferrero, Leopoldo Ulled and Adolfo Blanco, a team in which Ferrero, with the now-defunct Mercado de Olavide (1931-34) and the Fish Centers (1931) and Frutas y Verduras, carried out an authentic revolution in this type of building, both in the functional as well as the architectural aspect. Ferrero himself comments: "Simplicity has presided over the ordering and construction of the new markets, to the point that it has broken with all the old molds, giving rise to a strongly original orientation. Even the most modern and more perfect foreign markets have not been able to get rid of magnificence... The people of Madrid have built themselves not for the astonishment of the public, but for their service'".

The Market occupies a space of thirty thousand square meters, but is currently in disuse. Although there is a project to remodel it, the Docomomo platform for the defense of architectural heritage considers that it will not respect its "heritage, architectural and historical" values ​​and requests that they be taken into account.

Court Roads Garages

Wikipedia Commons

The Cuatro Caminos depots of the Madrid Metro are the oldest depots in the entire country: their construction began in 1918 and they were the technological core of the Madrid metropolitan company. They were used as a train depot, workshops and offices.

Its architect was Antonio Palacios and they are considered one of his most unique works. "In the case of a work space linked to avant-garde public transport, it does not renounce dignifying them with a careful design of its pieces both in the material expression and in the composition of the elements that compose it", indicates the Salvemos Cuatro Caminos platform, which divulge about them and seek support to prevent their disappearance.

Currently, an urban project proposes to tear them down and build a tower with 443 homes. The Madrid, City and Heritage association requests that the City Council include them in the Catalog of Protected Assets and that the plan be paralyzed. "We view with concern the lack of sensitivity of the Public Administrations towards the little industrial heritage that we have left in Madrid, of which these railway facilities are a unique example at a European and world level," they expressed in El País.