Page 114 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Ayrault Pérez, Juan

Figure 27. General Hospital Figure 28. Madrid Atocha canopy.
Source: Artehistoria.com Source: FFE.

Figure 29. Palacio de Medinaceli, one among Figure 30. Palacio de Villahermosa, now ThyssenBornemisza Museum.
the many palaces demolished in La Castellana. Source: artedemadrid.wordpress.com
Source: urbancidades.wordpress.com

In 1976, Renfe presented a plan to displace Atocha station, demolish the old building and build
a supermarket. The proposal raised a lot of controversy. A campaign against Renfe project
cancelled the company’s plan, but still in 1978 press articles begged for the station not to be
demolished.
In the early 70’s, the neighbouring Royal Botanical Garden was almost abandoned, even though
it still maintained part of its initial scientific task. Its original buildings had been altered by
unfortunate interventions. Surprisingly, the worst threats came even from culture officials, as
a project of a museum dedicated to Goya could have seriously damaged the place. Fortunately
the project was discarded after receiving numerous criticisms.
The palace of Marquis of Villahermosa, now the venue of Thyssen‐Bornemisza museum avoided
nearly demolition, but lost all its 18th century magnificent interior decoration in 1973. The
Lopez‐Quesada bank commissioned a project that preserved only its façades to install the bank
headquarters.
In fact, heritage destruction was generalized at that time. 19th century architecture was
generally disregarded as ‘bourgeois’ and ‘decadent’. Madrid experienced discouraging examples
of losses such as the Cebada market, built in 1880, the Grasset workshops by Demetrio Ribes
and plenty of private aristocratic palaces in the Castellana avenue. This phenomenon was not
exclusively Spanish. Along the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, masterworks such as the Penn station in New
York City, Euston station in London, Les Halles in Paris or Victor Horta’s buildings in Brussels were

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