The CaixaForum Madrid was inaugurated in February 13th 2008. It's a new cultural venue in the center of Madrid, located in Paseo del Prado, near the Prado Museum, the Botanical Garden, the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum.
The CaixaForum is housed in a converted power station built in 1899, the Central Eléctrica del Mediodía. Only the perimeter walls of the power station were kept, all the interior spaces are new, and the height of the building was increased with a corten steel addition placed over the old brick walls. The base of the building was removed, creating a covered plaza.
A gas station that stood between the power station and Paseo del Prado was demolished, thus creating a new plaza. One of the walls of the new public space is a vertical garden, designed by Patrick Blanc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Blanc).

Address
Paseo del Prado, 35
28014 Madrid

Getting there
Metro - Line 1, Atocha station
Bus - Lines 10, 14, 27, 34, 37 and 45 stop in Paseo del Prado, Lines 6, 26 and 32 stop in the nearby Calle Atocha .

Opening hours
Everyday from 10am to 8pm (the building is closed on special holidays)
Free entrance

Some web links
Caixaforum Madrid website (http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/centros/caixaforummadrid_es.html)
Caixaforum Madrid on Arcspace (http://www.arcspace.com/architects/herzog_meuron/caixa/caixa.html)
Caixaforum Madrid on Europaconcorsi (http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/scheda.php?id=20590)
Patrick Blanc's website (http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/)

Attachments

Location map

Google Earth placemark

Building diagram:
Underground levels - conference rooms, workshops and an auditorium
Ground level - plaza
1st level - Lobby
2nd and 3rd levels - exhibition spaces
4th level - cafeteria, restaurant and administration

View from Paseo del Prado
The (already vandalized) signage
The new public square

The vertical garden
Looking up
The new windows that opens to the lobby - all the existing windows were closed

Stitched view from the opposite side
Looking up - that corten steel grille is concealing the HVAC machinery
Street level view

Another stitched view from a different side (I took this on the day after I visited the building, with a much better weather...)
View across the covered plaza
View from the covered plaza towards Paseo del Prado

Two views of the space below the building, to the back. This part is a dead end and IMHO looks quite unresolved, they made those steps with a waterfall but still the opening between the building and the sidewalk had to be protected with a guardrail...
The volume that contains the stairs to the main lobby. The ceiling, as well as this volume, is made of triangular steel plates welded together and painted silver

Two (more pleasant) views across the covered plaza. This space created a shortcut route in this part of the city and you can actually see a lot of people just walking across the building.
View of the entrance

The stairs up to the lobby

Three more views

Two views across the lobby first one looking towards the reception desk and second towards the shop (btw, it has a good collection of architecture books)
Detail of the handrail - the top one is huge!

Three different views of the reception desk and the box enclosing the back offices, the wood looks like it's walnut

A relaxing space adjacent to the reception
Window detail
Ceiling detail

Now moving on to the stairs that conncect all the levels of the building. These are all white, with terrazzo floor and white smoothed concrete walls and ceilings.
These are really dramatic and "gaudiesque".

In the lowest level you have the auditorium foyer, the walls are clad in a metal mesh with an imprinted "topography"

Back in the main stairs, different views as we move on to the upper levels. I haven't got any pictures inside the galleries (photographing isn't allowed)

Looking out from a window on the stairs
Close up of the corten steel cladding
Washrooms (these are actually in the 1st level)

And finally, three views of the cafeteria

Thank you as per usual !!!

I feel indebted to your finesse and detail describing, documentary like, buildings in words and pictures.

V0id,

You seem to be everywhere in the Iberic peninsula, thank you for another great post of an interesting new building.

The all stainless steel floors including in the stairs are impressive but it seems it may be easier to slip in them than other floor finishes. Wonder what are the cleaning procedures, they would probably only clean them when the building is closed.

Here are some exterior photos taken November 2007. The roof finish still rough, it seems they painted it with some exterior coating that makes it look much brighter and uniform.

all the existing windows were closed

Thanks vOid amazing images and descriptions as usual.
Do you (anyone) have images of the building before work was done.

It strikes me that this is an extraordinary response to a histric environment, beautiful and brilliant and bold. I love the images in post 3 and 4. (The interior is less interesting IMHO)

But I can also see when their idea gets ripped off and handled less sensitively we could see some really crass architecture? :wondering

Thanks for the comments
The all stainless steel floors including in the stairs are impressive but it seems it may be easier to slip in them than other floor finishes. Wonder what are the cleaning procedures, they would probably only clean them when the building is closed.

Here are some exterior photos taken November 2007. The roof finish still rough, it seems they painted it with some exterior coating that makes it look much brighter and uniform.
I saw something peeling off in some points of the corten steel cladding, I have no idea what it is but, needless to say, it didn't look nice. I'm sure they did something to give rust such a bright color.
About the stainless steel floor, it didn't feel that slippery, at least not more than a polished stone floor would be.

Do you (anyone) have images of the building before work was done.

It strikes me that this is an extraordinary response to a histric environment, beautiful and brilliant and bold. I love the images in post 3 and 4. (The interior is less interesting IMHO)

But I can also see when their idea gets ripped off and handled less sensitively we could see some really crass architecture? :wondering
You can see a couple of images of the building and site prior to the intervention on the Arcspace link (http://www.arcspace.com/architects/herzog_meuron/caixa/caixa.html).
I agree the exterior looks better than the interior. The interior spaces are interesting individually, but lack some sense of continuity.
I'm not sure this could be seen as a good example of handling an historic building, not that it is necessarily wrong, but what they did deletes the character of the existing building almost completely, leaving only a fragment of its image as a memory for the urban landscape. But maybe in this case this was the only thing worth keeping, what they did was a collage and using part of the old building in this new context works well.
Most of the times the problem when dealing with historic buildings is quite the opposite - how do you preserve the essential of their character and yet transform them into something new? This wasn't obviously the case here, and in this situation I do prefer their radicalism to a falsely conservative attitude.

I'm not sure this could be seen as a good example of handling an historic building, not that it is necessarily wrong, but what they did deletes the character of the existing building almost completely, leaving only a fragment of its image as a memory for the urban landscape. But maybe in this case this was the only thing worth keeping, what they did was a collage and using part of the old building in this new context works well.
Most of the times the problem when dealing with historic buildings is quite the opposite - how do you preserve the essential of their character and yet transform them into something new? This wasn't obviously the case here, and in this situation I do prefer their radicalism to a falsely conservative attitude.

Thanks for the link. Very interesting to see where they made the cuts.

Personally I think it is a brilliant response to what was let's face it a taciturn existing building. Somehow that makes it appropriate. I agree that this would not be appropriate on most historic buildings and hope we don't see a raft of rip offs (everything else they do seems to get copied). But I also think one could make a case for this kind of 'memory' making in the city - many historic buildings are so changed by time that perhaps only a memory of their original character remains too :wondering

I agree the exterior looks better than the interior. The interior spaces are interesting individually, but lack some sense of continuity.


Although I really quite like the exterior, by the posted photos, I can't help but agree that the interior spaces seem disjointed, as if each on were designed by a different person. Is there any transition, (conversation) between the different area treatments that could be said to make them congruent?

Although I really quite like the exterior, by the posted photos, I can't help but agree that the interior spaces seem disjointed, as if each on were designed by a different person. Is there any transition, (conversation) between the different area treatments that could be said to make them congruent?
No, it's exactly as you see in the pictures, except in the transition between the exhibition galleries and the central staircase, if I remember correctly they share the same type of terrazzo floor and that's all. Well, the walls inside the galleries are white too, but not in concrete.

VIDEO (http://www.0300.tv/2008/06/herzog-de-meuron-caixaforum-madrid/) on 0300.TV (http://www.0300.tv/)

Thanks Void - very helpful