The project by architects Tuñón and Mansilla is a large rising sun that emerges among the four new skyscrapers on the Paseo de la CastellanaThe future International Convention Centre, which will be located in the new financial and business area in the north of Madrid, will spread out over 70,000 m², will have a 15,000 m² exhibition area and will be located inside a 62,000 m² urban park. The project will provide Madrid with the largest and most avant-garde convention centre in Spain.
The site of the former Real Madrid Sport City now accommodates the four tallest skyscrapers in the city: Torre Espacio, Torre Sacyr -both completed and standing at 236 meters tall-, Torre Cristal (Mutua) and Repsol Tower -the two latter are still under construction and will tower 250 metres above the city. They will compose Madrid’s new skyline and will be “illuminated” by the new Madrid Convention Centre, an ambitious project with which architects Tuñón and Mansilla won the call for ideas that sought designs for this new infrastructure that hopes to strengthen and encourage business tourism in Madrid.
The project entitled “Madrid, donde no se pone el sol” (“Madrid, where the sun never sets”) was designed by a team of architects formed by Emilio Tuñón, Luis Moreno Mansilla and Matilde Peralta del Amo, who propose a large bright structure with different floors and a circular layout, which is oriented towards the East and the West, where the sun rises and sets. According to the authors, it’s a “rising sun, halted by the optimism of knowing that Madrid is a city that lives, works and has fun at all hours of the day and night, a city where the sun never sets.” Its symbolism and representative aspect made the jury select this project from among the 135 proposals from the first stage and the six that made it through to the final stage. Precisely the day that the winner was selected, the architects were receiving the prestigious 2007 Mies Van der Rohe award that recognised their work on the venue they had designed for the Castilla y León Contemporary Art Museum (Musac).
The largest convention centre in Spain
Madrid is a leading city when it comes to staging trade fairs and conferences. Given its know-how and experience, as well as its competitive costs, every year 4,000 conventions and meetings are staged in the city attracting over 700,000 visitors. This capacity will be increased with the city’s third Convention Centre which will add the seating space of its auditoriums and halls to those in the Municipal Conference Centre in the Campo de las Naciones and the Convention Centre in the Paseo de la Castellana, as well as the Ifema Convention Centre and the different venues that are located around the city and stage this type of events.
The future Centre is an enormous semicircle. It stands 100 metres high, less than half the height of the lowest towers it surrounds, has an 80 metre radius and is 60 metres wide. The surface will be decorated with ornamental perforations, which will also have a practical use since they will let light through to the interior area and act as viewpoints that provide stunning vistas of the city and the mountain range of Madrid. Furthermore, the image of the actual construction will also be amazing, both during the day and at night since the façade will be covered with small lights, with energy-saving light bulbs.
The building will be six floors high and will have five underground levels. The access floor will accommodate a main auditorium, with seating capacity for 3,500 people, which can be extended with another auditorium that will be constructed outdoors and will seat 1,500 people. In total, it will accommodate 5,000 people. The first and second floors will house a hall for 1,500 people, two for 600 people and three for 400. The third floor will accommodate two halls for 800 people, two for 600 people and three for 400 people.
The exhibition hall will be located on the fourth and fifth floors, whilst the top floor will accommodate the restaurant area. The whole top part of the building will have an added attraction, since it will provide magnificent views over the urban and mountain landscape of Madrid.
An avant-garde design with a sustainable approach
The underground area will accommodate the additional services. The first floor, semi-underground, will accommodate the loading and unloading area, the bus parking area and a commercial zone opening onto the park that surrounds the building. The next three floors will accommodate the car parks and the last floor will have a water lake to collect and reuse rain water and an air lake for the preclimatisation of the air conditioning system. Environmental technology criteria will be used in the fifth underground floor, but they will also be implemented in the whole of the building. Processes will be optimised during construction and maintenance, clean materials and solar energy will be used, and there will also be a limitation of the energy demand, with passive systems located on the façade.
This project, which has appeared thanks to the collaboration agreement signed by the Madrid Council, the Official Architects Association of Madrid (COAM) and Madrid Espacios y Congresos (the institution which will manage this location and is currently in charge of the Municipal Convention Centre, the Casa de Campo pavilions and the Telefónica Arena), aims to be ready in 2011.
