The Eduardo Torroja Institute, together with the EsPatrimonio Descúbrelo Programme, is undertaking this new project with the intention of giving greater exposure to our Architecture, Architects and Engineers who have made it possible.
It is born with the intention of continuity and will regularly show, through small videos that will be published on social networks and our websites, representative elements of our architecture and/or engineering, as well as different aspects related to them: authors, restoration works, interventions to adapt to the needs of the 21st century, construction techniques, etc. These will be small brushstrokes that will introduce us to this discipline that has become a reference point throughout history.
The Zarzuela Hippodrome, work of the architects Carlos Arniches and Martín Domínguez and the engineer Eduardo Torroja, it is one of the most representative elements of the Modern Movement within its innovative section in Spain. Its outstanding and respectful restoration has been carried out by Junquera Architectos.
Work of the architect Jaime de Ferrater Ramoneda in 1958, who broke with the canons of Spanish industrial architecture up to that moment. The main building for bottling stands out, with a characteristic structure of parallel parabolic arches from which the large beams of the main shape hang.It was restored by architect Carlos Ferrater between 1998 and 2001, carefully respecting the building and, mainly, its operational structure.
The Maravillas School’s Gymnasium, work of the architect Alejandro de la Sota, it is executed by means of a sober architecture, without anything superfluous, leaving the materials and the structure visible and disfiguring the limits with industrial architecture.
An “essential” architecture that responds to a needs programme and whose result is one of the best examples of Modern Spanish Architecture.
The Thermal Power Plant of the University City of Madrid was built in 1932 by architect Manuel Sánchez Arcas and engineer Eduardo Torroja. An innovative central heating system based on American models. It was designed taking into account economic, energy efficiency and ease of maintenance criteria. Master Eduardo Torroja was in charge of its restoration after the Civil War. Although it has undergone some transformations, it still retains much of its original machinery and is currently in operation, as a true Living Museum.
THE RECOLETOS FRONTON
The Recoletos fronton (1935) is the work of the Architect Secundino Zuazo and the Engineer Eduardo Torroja. Its shape responds to the functional and aesthetic needs of the sports space. The curvature of the stands together with the roof, give the building a great plastic expressiveness. During the Civil War the roof suffered important damages that caused its collapse in 1939. With this one of the most avant-garde and innovative elements in the field of laminar structures, at an international level, was lost.
Within the work of Maestro De La Sota we show you the César Carlos Residential College (1967) which was an innovation in this typology by proposing a separation into two buildings, one for individual life and study, and the other for social interaction. This is the result of a profound reflection on the operating programme of a centre for postgraduate students, where they are offered a momentary escape from the stress of study, by passing through the garden, to the place designed for relationships. Architect José Manuel López-Peláez, National Architecture Prize winner and Professor Emeritus of the UPM, introduces us to the keys of this work.
The creation of a modern University City, which brings together faculties, sports fields and student residences, in open spaces, establishes the need to develop a transport system that runs through it and communicates it with the city. To do this, the route of the line that served the Central School of Agriculture, the only pre-existing one in the area, would be modified, which entails the execution of three unique works by Master Torroja: the underground tram station, opposite a Stadium that would never be built, the Air Viaduct, so called because of its lightness, located in a beautiful natural setting, and the Dames Station, next to the fountain of the same name that converges with the Royal Path that leads to the Royal Estate of El Pardo.
The “Nuestra Señora De Luján” Argentinian College, an unknown jewel of our heritage from the 20th century. Made by the great exponents of the Modern Argentine Movement, Architects Horacio Baliero and Carmen Córdova, with the collaboration of the Spanish Architect Javier Feduchi Benlliure in the Work Management. It is configured as a fan-shapped staggered building, integrated into nature, with certain reminiscences of Aalto’s architectural organicism.
Santo Tomás de Aquino College, a work that earned Architects José María García de Paredes and Rafael de la HozArderius the National Architecture Award in 1957. A project promoted by the Dominican Order where the conceptualisation of a complex needs programme, the purification of the architectural language and the fusion of arts, led to this innovative result.
The Casa do Brasil in the University City of Madrid (1959-1962) was designed by the Brazilian architect Luis Alfonso d’Escragnolle Filho, who was accompanied during its construction by the Spanish architect Fernando Moreno Barberá. The building, influenced by the architecture of Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa in Brasilia, responds to the most avant-garde postulates of its time.
The new Faculty of Philosophy and Letters inaugurated the ambitious project of the University City of Madrid. It marked the beginning of a new chapter in education in Spain, the aim of which was to create an autonomous university, detached from politics, which would provide a comprehensive education that would combine scientific and humanist models. To achieve this, the efforts of two outstanding personalities came together: the Architect and Director of the Construction Board of the University City, Mr. Modesto López Otero, and the Dean of the Faculty, Mr. Manuel García Morente. The brilliant architect Agustín Aguirre, the project’s drafter with Eduardo Torroja as engineer, worked closely with García Morente resulting in the integration of thought and form in the building.
Since its creation, the Eduardo Torroja Institute has been one of our most outstanding ambassadors. The Institute became a promoter and bastion of modernity and innovation in the construction sector, and a meeting point and forum for international debate on scientific research and its implementation.
The project for the Centre for Hydrographic Studies and Hydraulics Laboratory was carried out between 1960 and 1963 by Master Miguel Fisac. The Models’ storehouse stands out, where the innovative roof merges material, form and technical needs, resulting in a linteled roof with a span of 22 metres made up of so-called “bone-beams”, of an unquestionable plastic beauty.
With the publication of the Decree of 18 April 1952 on the creation of dairies in municipalities with more than 25,000 inhabitants and the Regulations governing them, the foundations were laid for the construction of a modern and innovative factory that the Sociedad Clesa commissioned in 1968 to the architect Alejandro de la Sota. The plant was designed as a showcase of modernity, with a walkway from which to view the production process without interfering with its operation, crossing a sequence of interconnected luminous spaces that gave the building an exceptional spatial richness.
Centre for Artistic Restoration “Crown of Thorns”
In 1961, the General Directorate of Fine Arts created the Institute for the Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art, from where the creation of an advanced Restoration Centre was proposed. The work was carried out by the architects Fernando Higueras and Antonio Miró and resulted in a circular building, with a sculptural configuration of the construction elements and marked structural expressiveness. It was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 2001.
The Theologate of St. Peter Martyr for the Dominican Fathers
The church is integrated into a hierarchical group of courtyards and cloisters that make up the Convent and Theologate. The floor plan responds to studies on the layout of the faithful in churches prior to the Second Vatican Council, adapted to a specific programme: as a convent church and as a public church. The solution chosen, two hyperbolic arches, tensions the space converging towards the altar. Inside the church, Fisac advocated the simplification of iconographic expressiveness, using few, high-quality works, basing the plastic expressiveness on the movement towards the altar through the arrangement of the walls, light and colour.
The works of the University City of Madrid were undertaken in a small pavilion, first located where today is the Clinical Hospital and later relocated to its current location in the district of La Moncloa. Under the management of the architect López Otero, continuity was sought for a project which had survived various political regimes whose traces are still imprinted on the complex. The Civil War occasioned significant damages, some of which resulted in irreparable losses, such as the murals of one of the greatest exponents of fresco painting of the time, Luis Quintanilla, which lined the main lobby. In the late 1950’s, the Board Pavillion housed the central administrative services and became the Government Pavilion.