Esp
Antonio Lamela, co-author of the Barajas T4 and considered one of the fundamental architects of the last century, was the architect of the Colón Towers, a project that for decades has been a symbol of the Spanish capital and that will now be transformed on the 50th anniversary of its construction. A project that for decades has been a symbol of the Spanish capital and that will now be transformed on the 50th anniversary of the start of its construction. The reason? "The Madrid citizens did not like the plug," said the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, at the press conference in which the company that owns the building, Mutua Madrileña, presented the new project signed by the architect Luis Vidal.
This is not the most radical transformation that the infrastructure will undergo, although the reform is one of the most talked-about in recent years, as it confronts two renowned architects and puts millions of euros at stake, along with the possibility of leaving an almost immortal legacy in the center of Madrid.On the one hand, Vidal, author of Terminal 2 of London's Heathrow Airport, among others, defends that his project will transform an unquestionable architectural icon of the 20th century into one "for the 21st century". On the other hand, Carlos Lamela, son of the creator of the towers and president of Estudio Lamela, responsible so far for all the interventions in the Colón complex, considers it a "real mess" that threatens his father's work: a building whose singularity lies in the fact that, instead of resting on pillars, the floors hang from the top and which, according to him, should be protected, like other contemporary constructions.
Innovation and environmental protection merge in Vidal's proposal. The insurer wants to invest around 65 million euros to "give back to the towers the innovative character with which they were born," according to Vidal. To this end, the architect explains, "it has designed the first building with almost zero emissions, which will also generate 10% of the energy it consumes, and in which 20% of the total consumption will come from renewable sources".
Novelties affecting its morphology. Several floors of the first floor will be eliminated and will be moved to two new four-story buildings on the upper part.
Farewell to the orange glass. The cladding of the building will leave its particular color in favor of the aesthetic canons of the time.
The fire escape will occupy the core of the buildings. In its place, a "third body" will be created that will serve as a link between the two towers and, in addition to containing the elevators, which are now located in the core, will increase the floor area from 300 square meters in each tower to a single 800-meter floor.
According to company officials, when these changes are made, its main and distinguishing feature - its character as a hanging building - will be better appreciated. But according to the Association for the Protection of the Columbus Towers, they betray the spirit of the original project.
In past reforms, such as the "plug" or the orange glass facade, temporary and reversible interventions were carried out that modified the original appearance of the towers, to the point that their description in the COAM catalog reads: "With an interesting hanging structure, they have been greatly altered in a reform of the nineties that has masked their entire silhouette".Beyond the heritage value for its architectural interest, several architects point out its urban and landscape value. José María Ezquiaga says that "the bold structural solution, deserving of singular protection, and the visual impact in a strategic point of the city, soon turned them into one of the icons of Madrid. Despite the transformation of the roof and facades that altered their original image, the Colón Towers are now part of the landscape and the collective memory of Madrid," and therefore, he notes, "any transformation should take into account the public's perception, as suggested by UNESCO. According to Azpilicueta, "The addition of this invention will lose proportion in the silhouette of the city," says Azpilicueta."Opinions aside, it is the members of the Commission for the Protection of the Historical, Artistic and Natural Heritage of the Madrid City Council(CIPHAN) who will have to resolve these questions. At the moment, the circumstance is that both these works, which propose a significant change, and the procedure for the protection of the towers by the City Council, began last May 2019.
The truth is that, since the first plan designed by Antonio Lamela in the 1970s, the Colon Towers have never ceased to mutate. The architect managed to convince the City Council to build two buildings instead of one. But in the middle of construction, Mayor Carlos Arias Navarro ordered its demolition for exceeding the height allowed by municipal ordinances. Thus, the work was stopped during the two years that the litigation lasted. In 1992, fire safety regulations required the installation of an evacuation stairway. Since the owner of the building at that time requested that this be done without interrupting the office activity, the staircase was placed outside, between the towers, which meant the addition of the orange casing on the facade and the famous plug, the work of Estudio Lamela.Now, the project faces a new stage and, in the meantime, all that remains is to ask:
