Edificio España
Edificio España | |
---|---|
España | |
Coordinates | 40°25′27″N 3°42′43″W / 40.42417°N 3.71194°W |
Construction started | 1948 |
Completed | 4 October 1953[1] |
Owner | RIU Hotels |
Height | |
Roof | 117 m (384 ft) |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 25 |
Lifts/elevators | 32 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Julián Otamendi |
Structural engineer | Joaquín Otamendi |
The Hotel Riu Plaza España is a historic skyscraper, the 8th tallest building in Madrid, Spain. It opened in 1953 as the Edificio España (Spanish: Spain Building), a mixed-use structure containing a hotel, offices, apartments and shops. It is an example of 20th-century Spanish architecture built in the neo-baroque style. The Spanish RIU Hotels chain acquired the building in 2017 and reopened it as a hotel in 2019.
History
It was designed by architect Julián Otamendi and his brother in the Neo-baroque style and constructed in 1948 and was completed in 1953. It was a "symbol of prosperity" during the decades of Francisco Franco's Spain.[2]
It was the tallest building in Spain, with 25 floors and a height of 117 m (384 ft), until overtaken by the
Metrovacesa, which owned the structure since its completion, marketed it in April 2005 along with the neighboring Torre de Madrid to help finance its acquisition of French property company, Gecina.[3]
In June 2005,
The building was acquired in 2014 by
By the time it was purchased by
In January 2017, it was announced that the building will be remodeled into a Riu Plaza hotel.[8] In June 2017, RIU Hotels bought the entire structure outright from the Baraka Group. They remodeled the building to serve entirely as a hotel,[9] the Hotel Riu Plaza España, which opened on 13 August 2019.[10] The lower three floors contain retail, while the rest of the building houses a 585-room hotel with 5,000 m2 of event space, two restaurants, and a rooftop pool and skybar distributed over the two upper levels, 26 (covered) and 27, with 500 square meters of wide terrace.
Since April 2022, the Edificio España houses the main Zara flagship store in Spain. The new Zara together with Stradivarius add up to a total of 9,000 square meters of surface area. It is presumably the company's largest store in the world to date.[11]
In popular culture
The building is depicted in 1984 movie The Hit. A part of it is shot in an apartment in the nearby Torre de Madrid, from which the Edifico España is well visible.
In 2007
See also
References
- ^ a b León, Pablo (20 April 2015). "De coloso decadente a plaza cinco estrellas | Politica | EL PAÍS". El País.
- ^ a b "Edificio España (The Building)". UnionDocs (UnDo) is a Center for Documentary Art. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
- ^ "Two bidders vie for Metrovaseca offices". Euro Property. Highbeam. 1 June 2005. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 2012-12-05.
- ^ A. Larrañeta (20 February 2007). "El Edificio España sigue vacío un año y medio después de su venta". 20 Minutos (in Spanish). Retrieved 2012-12-05.
- ^ a b c Minder, Raphael (September 23, 2014). "Sale of a Landmark Skyscraper Puts Spain on the Map of Chinese Investors". New York Times.
- ABC.es. 2014-06-05. Retrieved 2014-06-05.
- Expansión(in Spanish).
- ^ "Riu Plaza Hotel Announced for Madrid's Iconic 'Edificio España'".
- ^ "Riu Purchases the 'Edificio España' Building in Madrid".
- ^ "Riu Plaza España Hotel Opens in Madrid".
- ^ "Inditex opens this week its largest Zara in the world in Edificio España" (in Spanish). 4 April 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
- ^ "Edificio España (The Building)". edificioespana.es. Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
External links
- Media related to Edificio España, Madrid at Wikimedia Commons
- Hotel Riu Plaza España official website