MADRID CELEBRATES ITS XXII ARCHITECTURE WEEK WITH PORTUGAL AS GUEST COUNTRY
For this 2025 edition of Madrid’s Architecture Week, taking place from October 3rd to 13th, ENERO Arquitectura has selected a series of routes, exhibitions, and talks that we consider essential—not only for their heritage, historical, and social value but also for the questions they raise about the city’s identity.
From hospital architecture in Salamanca to major urban projects such as the Prado-Recoletos axis, and visual tributes to key figures like Luis Gutiérrez Soto and Clorindo Testa, we believe these events offer multiple windows to explore Madrid—its past, its current projects, and the challenges that still lie ahead.
Hospital Architecture Through the Centuries in the Salamanca District
This route takes us through a set of healthcare buildings that reflect how hospitals have been conceived over more than a century. From the 19th-century sobriety of Hospital El Rosario, through the technical modernization of Ruber and San Camilo, to the monumental rationalism of Hospital de la Princesa, the itinerary reveals how functionality, ideology, and architectural style intertwine.
We find it particularly interesting because it connects with our own experience in healthcare architecture, showing how spatial solutions always respond to the needs of their time.
This tour will take place on Friday, October 3rd, 2025, at 5:00 p.m.
Hospital Universitario Santa Cristina.
Luis Gutiérrez Soto and His Importance in Madrid’s Architecture
On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of his birth, Madrid pays tribute to one of its most prolific and versatile architects. The exhibition in Retiro Park showcases 14 of his buildings through graphic panels and documentary material accessible to the general public.
Additionally, specific routes are organized to explore his bourgeois housing projects in Almagro and Salamanca. From the Barceló cinema to the Barajas airport, Gutiérrez Soto’s work reminds us how an architect can shape a city’s identity. For ENERO, this proposal is inspiring because it values everyday architecture—the kind lived in neighborhoods.
Edificio de la Unión y el Fénix. Obra de Luis Gutiérrez Soto.
Álvaro Siza’s Project for the Prado-Recoletos Axis Renovation
The Prado-Recoletos axis is one of Madrid’s most emblematic settings, now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This route reviews what has been completed and what remains pending from Álvaro Siza’s ambitious project, stopping at significant sites such as Plaza de Colón, Cuesta de Moyano, and the area surrounding the Prado Museum.
We are especially interested because it is not just a historical review but an active debate on how to manage urban transformation in such a sensitive context—a chance to reflect on how major projects can foster social consensus.
Fotografía aérea del eje Prado-Recoletos.
The House of Architecture
Located within the Nuevos Ministerios complex, designed by Secundino Zuazo in the 1930s, the House of Architecture was created with a clear purpose: to bring architecture closer to society and present it as a collective effort.
More than just a building, it is conceived as an open cultural space that promotes values of quality, sustainability, and multidisciplinarity. We consider it an essential place to understand how architecture can also serve as communication, education, and civic engagement—and we encourage everyone to visit it.
Clorindo Testa, A Centennial Tribute
The Italian-Argentine architect Clorindo Testa was a key figure in Latin American modernism and brutalism, and his work transcended architecture to approach art. The exhibition brings together drawings, sketches, and photographs that reveal the plastic power of his projects, revisiting his work from the Bank of London to the National Library of Buenos Aires. His language of exposed concrete, color, and sculptural form stands as a lesson in boldness and imagination.
At ENERO, we see this tribute as an opportunity to broaden our perspective, connecting Madrid with an international reference who showed that architecture and art can be inseparable.
This exhibition will be open from October 3rd to 12th, 2025, at the School of Architecture of Universidad San Pablo-CEU in Boadilla del Monte.