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Inclined towers in Madrid, not an optical illusion

Madrid, Spain & Geneva, Switzerland – The trip to Madrid from Geneva is a quick hop, 1.5 hours by plane, or 14 driving, minus the detour through Bilbao at midnight.

On a recent trip to Spain I was awestruck by the automobile driven megopolis that is Madrid – there are 6.5 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area and with some of the cheapest gas prices in Europe, cars and overpasses are ubiquitous.

I was also happily surprised by a number of noteworthy architectural works breaking up the city scape. Our tour of the City began, with a Priest and friend of the family, driving from the North of the City, South along the Castellana, the principal avenue in Central Madrid.Our first stop was the KIO Towers (Kuwaiti Investment Offfice Towers), otherwise known as the leaning towers of Madrid. As I stood in the middle of the Castellana taking shots of the towers, a New Year’s reveler stumbled past me (at 11 am) on his way home; his sideways stagger mimicked almost perfectly the incline of the building behind him.

After a brief stop at the Colón Plaza, a Neo-Gothic 19th Century homage to the explorer, we arrived at Atocha Station, the recently completed central train station which was added onto the existing rail yards and train bays.

Atocha parking lot

A lateral view of Atocha

For me, the real draw of the station lies outside, with its walls of automatically articulated shutters, and semi-enclosed parking structure dotted with Arabesque archways.

Inside is a pleasantly open modern space that is best appreciated by stepping through the entryway into the hall housing the original train quays; the older half of the combined structure is dominated by a spacious courtyard with a fountain in the center.

The antiquated steel frame structure of the train hall is effectively on display here, now that most traffic transits through the new station.

Our guide pointed to a darkened room with what seemed to be ultraviolet lighting; a memorial to the victims of the 2004 bombing at the Atocha Station.

In fact the room was illuminated through a blue skylight, with homages to peace inscribed on the glass in a helix pattern.

We finished our whirlwind tour with a walk through El Retiro, an urban retreat designed in the 17th century, and on the scale of New York’s Central Park. While portions of the Park are over the top, like the collonades and statue commemorating Alfonso XII, others like the tiered fountain area around the main entrance, and the walk around the lagoon, lend themselves to getting lost in your head on a Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon at El Buen Retiro Park

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