Virtuoso Life - March/April 2008 - (Page 69) One of the most important buildings in Madrid's city center is the Royal Palace, built after the former palace burnt down in 1734. In the classicist Italian Baroque style, it was charged to Juan Bautista Sachetti, Ventura Rodríguez and Francesco Sabatini and is the largest royal palace in Western Europe. Inside it houses beautiful rooms and countless artistic riches. Throughout the nineteenth century, Madrid grew towards the east due to the creation of the Salamanca District. Its streets form a checkerboard pattern in which Neoclassical buildings are mixed with modern constructions and small palaces. It was at this time that the need arose to create a large avenue linking this extension with the downtown. And so the Gran Vía was created in the early twentieth century, crossing the city while leading to the construction of emblematic buildings all along its path. The first was the Metrópolis Building, of French inspiration, the most notable features of which are its slate dome with gold incrustations crowned by a statue portraying Winged Victory. The Telefónica Building, completed in 1929, is a steel structure with a stone façade considered Europe's first skyscraper. By the 1950's, the Edificio España had been built, with twenty-five floors in a Neo-Baroque style, as had the rationalist Torre de Madrid, the tallest building on the continent for ten years. During the last part of the century and after the turn of the twentyfirst, Madrid gathered even greater momentum and became a global, vibrant city in which the most innovative projects by local architects compete with buildings designed by famous international architects. Rafael Moneo, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, was commissioned to design the extension of the Atocha Train Station in 1992 and has just completed the extension of one of the most important galleries of painting in the world, the Prado Museum. Recently added to the Reina Sofía Modern Art Center, which houses Picasso's Guernica, is a new structure designed by Jean Nouvel. It is composed of a massive red-colored overhang perforated by an immense hole, hovering over its new rooms. Last year, British architect Richard Rogers completed the new terminal at Barajas Airport, and Switzerland's Herzog and de Meuron are on the verge of finishing the Caixa Forum art center. Yet even more lies ahead. To be completed in 2008 is the construction of a complex containing four skyscrapers on the Paseo de la Castellana, designed by Norman Foster, Rubio Carvajal and Álvarez-Sala, César Pelli, and I. M. Pei, respectively. Madrid continues to build dreams… New Terminal, Barajas Airport Caixa Forum Art Center Reina Sofía Modern Art Center To learn more about Madrid go to : www.turismomadrid.es www.descubremadrid.com http://www.turismomadrid.es http://www.descubremadrid.com
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