The façade of the new building is also made of red brick similar to the original protected façade, facilitating continuity in the formal dialogue. Facing the staggering from the street, inside the building is expressed with a continuous and abstract façade to a large interior patio in the centre of the block.
The interior is characterized by a white image characteristic of other interiors designed by the architects, on this time, the continuous covering, instead of being white concrete as on other occasions, is made of white lacquered wooden boards with the carpentry standing out. of doors and windows are shown in their natural colour. On the upper floors are located the administrative spaces open to large garden terraces. The functional program of the project also has an auditorium and has the highest energy rating to guarantee the maximum efficiency of the facilities.
Arquia Bank Offices, in Madrid by Tuñón y Albornoz arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.
Arquia Bank Offices, in Madrid by Tuñón y Albornoz arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.
Arquia Bank Offices, in Madrid by Tuñón y Albornoz arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.
Project description by Tuñón y Albornoz Arquitectos
Behind the façade of an industrial building located on Calle Tutor in Madrid, which housed a printing press at the beginning of the 20th century, the new offices of Arquia Bank and the Arquia Foundation are installed.
The new four-story construction, which houses the new administrative building, is discreetly hidden behind the protected façade, staggered to leave the remains of the old industry in the foreground, without affecting the current section of the street, to favour the scale and the luminosity of this section of the street.
On the first floor, a lobby with a small dimension in the plan rises up to the roof of the first terrace, opening on its roof a skylight that introduces light into the space. Several spaces on the first floor open their eyes to the lobby, playing asymmetrically with the gaps in the existing façade.
The lobby gives way to the vertical communication core and to a single multifunctional space that, in turn, opens onto the small garden that is inserted into the courtyard of the block.
Arquia Bank Offices, in Madrid by Tuñón y Albornoz arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.
On the upper floors are the administrative spaces that open onto the different landscaped terraces, giving great light to all spaces.
Walls and ceilings are covered with white lacquered wood as if it were a ship.
The protected façade, made of pressed brick, marks the construction of the stepped façades, as well as that of the façade behind the courtyard of the block. All the exterior walls are perforated with large holes, on an almost industrial scale, establishing links with the construction that once existed in that same place.
And it is that this construction wants to be a simple tribute to those small industries that developed in the area at the beginning of the last century, and also wants to present the respect that the citizens of Madrid have for its humble industrial past.
