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This project, which has begun without affecting traffic, will turn the capital's thoroughfare into "a greener and friendlier street, with spaces to sit down and where pedestrians are given priority", according to José Manuel Calvo, Madrid City Councilor for Sustainable Urban Development, who pointed out that the project is expected to be completed before next Christmas.
One hundred and seven years of history permeate every inch of this emblematic street, where, now, pedestrians have gained space to the road and, above all, to pollution. According to the estimate made by Ecologistas en Acción, in the first 10 days of the partial closure to traffic of the main streets in the center of Madrid last December, NO2 levels fell by up to 32%.
According to the results obtained by the environmental confederation, this is a positive evolution that reduces the level of pollution to figures comparable to those of parks such as El Retiro, Parque de Juan Carlos I or Casa de Campo, the green lungs of the capital.
Beyond its stores, movie theaters, luxury hotels or postcard views, Madrid's Gran Vía also has a long anecdotal history since its creation, when the locals imposed themselves on it due to the high cost of a work of this magnitude.
In addition, its construction required the demolition of more than 300 houses, the expropriation of 33 plots of land and the disappearance of 14 streets. Despite all this, the project materialized in 1910 at a cost of around 29 million pesetas, with more than 26,000 square meters of paving and more than 9,000 meters of sidewalks.
Another anecdote that has marked the history of this emblematic avenue has bullfighting touches. On the cold winter morning of January 24, 1928, a fierce bull threatened the safety of pedestrians on Gran Vía. A street lover of the seventh art, where directors of the stature of Edgar Neville, José Luis Garci, Alejando Amenábar or Álex de la Iglesia have shot some of their films.
Impernor Asbitra has worked on several buildings in recent decades in the emblematic and central street of Madrid, where the works have started at both ends: Plaza de España and Plaza de Cibeles.
The headquarters of the Bank of Spain is one of the most emblematic buildings of Madrid and of the Spanish architecture of the nineteenth century. With facades facing Plaza de Cibeles, Alcalá Street and Paseo del Prado, it was built in 1884 by architects Eduardo de Adaro Magro, José Yarnoz Larrosa and Severino Sainz de la Lastra.
With a total built area of 4,736 square meters, consisting of three sections with eclectic decoration, giant columns and a chamfered façade, the building has been enlarged three times, in 1927, in 1969 and in 2006, when Impernor Asbitra helped to seal the basement walls in order to safely preserve the entire historical archive accumulated by the Banco de España throughout its history.
As a curious fact, we inform you, as hard as it may be to believe, that on the roof of the Bank of Spain there is a heliport which we waterproofed in 2013. At present, it is fully operational although it has never been used.
The Palacio de la Música was built between 1924 and 1926 on the second section of the Gran Vía by the architect Secundino Zuazo Ugalde. In 2009, the Caja Madrid Foundation acquired the building to transform it into an auditorium and the refurbishment project was commissioned to the architect José Luis Rodríguez. After the nationalization of Bankia, it was put on the market for 50 million euros and, currently, the Madrid City Council is studying the possibility of changing the building's license from "cultural use" to "urban development" so that it can house a store.
Impernor Asbitra participated in the last remodeling of the Palacio de la Música, which was a challenge for the company, since it is a building with a high acoustic resistance due to its origins as a theater. In order to obtain a waterproofing system with the required mechanical resistance, the work had to be carried out with polyester resins reinforced with fiberglass, a procedure similar to that used in the manufacture of nautical vessels.
Palacio Altamira, headquarters of the European Institute of Design and the European Institute of Architecture, has been part of the international Open House network since 2015. This historic 18th century building was designed by Ventura Rodriguez in 1772, has been refurbished by architect Gabriel Allende. Today, with more than 3,000 m2 distributed in an avant-garde complex of three buildings surrounding a large uncovered inner courtyard, it is configured as the main headquarters of the IED Madrid.
A space that has become an essential place for all those interested in the culture of design, in which Impernor Asbitra had the pleasure of collaborating during its last rehabilitation.
The Torre de Madrid has been, for many years, one of the most emblematic buildings in the center of Madrid. Built in the 1950s, together with the Edificio España, they form an interesting architectural ensemble near Madrid's Gran Vía. It was designed by the Otamendi Machimbarrena brothers, commissioned by the Compañía Inmobiliaria Metropolitana.
The building located in Plaza España was, for many years, the tallest concrete building in the world and, until the completion of the Torrespaña project (1982), the tallest infrastructure in Spain. Due to its height, its rooftop became for many years a strategic place to place telecommunications frequency repeaters, both for civil and military use.
Today, the Torre España building houses housing, offices and, in its lower part, a hotel. For Impernor Asbitra it was a pleasure to collaborate in the rehabilitation works of the building, both interior and exterior, during the past 2012 where the challenge was the placement of the roofs of the upper floors due to the height of this symbol of the center of Madrid.
