MADRID – RENOVATING THE INDUSTRY

DESCRIPTION – Madrid: Renovating the industry

This architecture tour in Madrid focuses on the reprogramming of industrial spaces, workshops and military buildings into public cultural, creative, leisure and relationship spaces, in the context of the current city.

We will start at Matadero Madrid. Created in 2006 and located in the old slaughterhouse and livestock market of the city, it is an enclosure of great heritage and architectural value, preserving its characteristic industrial style.

We will go to the Regional Archive of the Community and Regional Library of Joaquín Leguina. The set of buildings designed by Mansilla + Tuñón (1994-2002) were the old complex of the El Águila Beer Factory, whose construction spanned from 1900 to 1914. Of neo-Mudejar style, it stands out, of great size, the body of twelve metallic silos.

We will see in the Old Barracks of Daoíz and Velarde the Daoíz and Velarde Cultural Center (Rafael de La-Hoz, 2015). The military complex, known as “Docks” was built in the late nineteenth century along the tracks of the Atocha station and is a good example of industrial design in Madrid.

Another example of reconversion can be found in CaixaForum (Herzog & de Meuron, 2003), built on the site of the former Mediodía Power Plant, one of the last examples of industrial architecture in the area.

Our tour will then take us to Tabacalera Promoción del Arte, a space located in the Old Tobacco Factory of Madrid, which was in operation until the late twentieth century. Currently, after the creation of the National Center for Visual Arts in 2007, it is a permanent center for exhibitions and temporary events dedicated to photography, contemporary art and visual arts.

The building of the former Conde Duque Barracks, built in the early eighteenth century to house the Royal Corps Guards, is the work of one of the most important architects of the Madrid Baroque, Pedro de Ribera. Today it houses the Conde Duque Contemporary Culture Center.

We will finish our tour seeing the ABC Museum (Aranguren & Gallegos Arquitectos, 2010). Located in what was the first factory of Cervezas Mahou in Madrid (José López Salaberry, 1891), the space was created with the aim of becoming a European reference site for drawing and illustration.