Madrid officially became the capital of Spain during the reign of King Philip III, which ran from 1598 to 1621. This long history as Spain’s first city is reflected in these seven buildings, though with a bias toward buildings of the 21st century.

　　Earlier versions of the descriptions of these buildings first appeared in 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die, edited by Mark Irving (2016). Writers’ names appear in parentheses.

　　Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El EscorialLying northwest of Madrid, the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial is an enormous complex that is part basilica, part palace, part monastery, part museum, part library, and part mausoleum.

　　The building complex was ordered by King Philip II of Spain to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Saint Quentin in 1557 over the French. Construction was started in 1563 by the architect-in-chief of the royal works, Juan Bautista de Toledo, and after his death it was completed in 1584 by his assistant, Juan de Herrera. The austere appearance of the structure, with its absence of decoration and carefully proportioned geometric lines, is attributed to de Herrera.

　　Built of granite and laid out in a rectangular shape, the El Escorial complex has 180-foot-high (55 m) towers at its four corners. The basilica’s two campaniles are 236 feet (72 m) high, and the cupola is 301 feet (92 m) high. The main entrance, which faces west, leads into the Kings’ Courtyard. To the north is a school and to the south a monastery, both of which are still in use. Straight ahead lies the flat vault of the coro, or choir, which leads into the dark interior of the basilica. Next to it, to the north, is the Bourbon Palace, while to its south is the Cloister of the Evangelists, complete with white marble statues of the apostles and one of the world’s largest garden courts. A staircase at the back of the church leads down to the Kings’ Pantheon and the final resting place of the Spanish monarchs. (Carol King)

　　Plaza de Toros Monumental de Las VentasSituated in the east of Madrid, the Plaza de Toros Monumental de Las Ventas—or, more simply, the Monumental Bullring—is one of the most important buildings of its kind in the world, built to enhance Spain’s national spectacle. One of Spain’s most famous bullfighters, José Gómez Ortega, known as Joselito, spearheaded the project, and it was his friend, architect José Espeliús y Anduaga, who began work on it. Espeliús had designed various hotels and theaters, including Madrid’s Reina Victoria Theater. But Espeliús died before he could see his project realized, and it was completed in 1931 by Manuel Muñóz Monasterio, who later designed the Santiago Bernabéu football stadium.

　　Designed in Neo-Mudéjar, or Neo-Moorish, style, the outside of the circular building with its horseshoe-shaped arches is adorned with ceramic tilework decoration representing the shields of Spanish provinces. In the center lies the sand bullring arena, 196 feet (60 m) in diameter. The seats around the ring are divided into 10 groups of 27 rows each, called tendidos. The bullring seats almost 25,000 spectators. The arena has eight gates that allow access for the bulls and horses. A triumphant bullfighter is taken out of the bullring through the largest gate, the Puerta Grande, also called the Door of Madrid. (Carol King)

　　International J.C. Decaux Headquarters In 2001 J.C. Decaux, global manufacturers of street furniture—benches, bus shelters, billboards, and the like—moved their office headquarters for southern Europe and Latin America to Spain. The company had already identified a site for their new office, in the suburbs of Madrid, and it held an architectural competition to find a design that would suit both the company and the location. Their new headquarters, completed in 2001, came about by “recycling” the old Martini & Rossi factory, a listed building that had been identified as one of Madrid’s landmark structures. The 1959 factory had been designed by Jaime de Ferrater Ramoneda. Its protected building status represented a 21st-century challenge: to create a state-of-the-art office while keeping the majority of the building’s original features in place.

　　Architect Carlos Ferrater became internationally acclaimed for combining urban modernism with features of local, Mediterranean architecture, a sensibility he brought to this project. Inside, the Martini & Rossi factory featured a large, high-ceilinged space, comprising offices, warehouses, and working areas. The high, flat roof was supported by sweeping arches. Structurally, little was changed in the factory’s interior to turn it into the J.C. Decaux Headquarters, other than cosmetic and technological updating; the one major change was the introduction of skylights, installed above the new public areas to make maximum use of natural light. The spacious open-plan working areas were remodeled to provide office space. Externally, the old aluminum window frames were replaced, in part because they were considered a security risk. The entrance way was also remodeled, now taking full advantage of the high ceilings with an impressively spacious and welcoming lobby area. (Lucinda Hawksley)

　　This public library in Usera, a southern suburb of Madrid, suggests a building plucked from mythology: a golden tower, it has the appearance of the object of a quest. Its seductive power stems partly from its simple elegance and partly from the fact that it is intuitively understood as a sanctuary. That an inexpensive municipal building can be one of such symbolic potential is a real testament to its architects, the Madrid-based practice of Abalos & Herreros.

　　The tower—a form picked for its associations with learning—is a work of striking economy as well as deception. It is actually only four stories high, not counting mezzanine floors, but the way the slender windows are ranked disguises this. Further, the facade continues upward one story beyond the roof to make the building seem taller than it is.

　　The facade itself is made of prefabricated panels with a platinum-colored, slightly reflective skin, with the result that the color of the building is constantly changing throughout the day. One of its wonderful details is the way in which certain windows have sunshades that appear to open and close like the covers of a book. These fixed shutters angle views toward particular parts of the city.

　　Inside, the library, which was completed in 2003, has a basic open layout with high ceilings and an extremely spare use of materials. The only decorative element is the wallpaper, made by artist Peter Halley, which has an abstract pattern derived from the text of Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel.” This wallpaper, together with the limited daylight coming in through the slit windows, creates a studious atmosphere.

　　The real richness of the building, though, is to be appreciated from outside, in the way that it communicates the idea of a library to the surrounding community with a language that is somehow both age-old and absolutely contemporary. (Justin McGuirk)

　　This block of apartments, completed in 2004, presents an unusual variation on the traditional arrangement of having an open communal space at the center of a building to bring in light and air. Here, instead of the horizontal ground-level courtyard, there is a vertical one, five stories high, cutting a hole through the middle of the block on the 13th floor, 164 feet (50 m) above ground level.

　　The site is on the northeastern edge of Madrid, in the suburb of Sanchinarro, and the building was commissioned by the Madrid housing association EMVS. MVRDV is a Dutch architectural practice known for its innovative solutions to issues of density and the provision of public space in new urban developments, particularly housing. In Amsterdam, the firm built an iconic apartment block, Silodam, that showcases surprising solutions to residential density.

　　MVRDV uses the term “superblock” to describe the Mirador: the variegated finishes of the facade—stone, concrete, tiles—disguise nine smaller blocks within the whole. These are all seemingly “glued” together to create the building. Each block offers a different type of accommodation, which therefore encourages a mixed community. This spectacular whole provides an instantly identifiable reference point for the surrounding area—important in a new area of the city that has been planned and built from scratch. However, while it undoubtedly draws attention to itself, the Mirador building also acts as a giant frame, drawing the gaze to views of the sky and the Sierra de Guadarrama in the distance. (Rob Wilson)

　　Reina Sofía MuseumMadrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Spain’s national museum of modern art. It is built on the site of the San Carlos Hospital commissioned by King Charles III in the 18th century. The building has undergone several stages of conversion over the years to make it into a museum space. In 1980 Antonio Fernández Alba began work to restore and convert the building, and at the end of 1988 José Luis Iñíguez de Onzoño and Antonio Vázquez de Castro put the final touches to the modifications, whose most striking feature is three glass and steel lift towers.

　　More recently, a 86,100-square-foot (8,000 sq m) addition to the building added exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a library, cafeteria, restaurant, and administration offices. This addition, completed in 2005, was designed by Jean Nouvel, noted for his ability to create structures that are sympathetic to their surroundings and for his use of steel and glass to play with shadow, light, and form. Nouvel replaced three buildings that lay adjacent to the museum, so opening up a view of the museum’s west facade. The museum’s entrance is enclosed by a steel-and-glass tower containing lighting and projection screens. The tower completes a family of towers that surround the museum. The original building’s stone pedestal has been extended into the new museum structure to become the floor of the exhibition spaces, the restaurants, the library, and the offices. Nouvel’s three buildings sit around a courtyard: the library lies to the south; the auditorium, protocol room, bar, and restaurant to the west; and the exhibition spaces are to the north. The library captures light and shade from above using suspended, dome-shaped skylights. Steel louvers perforated in calligraphic patterns protect the large panels of etched glass. (Carol King)

　　Hotel Puerta AméricaThe facade of the Hotel Puerta América, designed by Jean Nouvel in a kaleidoscope of vibrantly colored PVC blinds, is adorned with words from Paul Eluard’s poem “Liberté.” Inside, 12 of the world’s leading architects created 12 distinctive floors: go on an exploratory journey via the minimalist John Pawson, the fluid and sinuous curves of Zaha Hadid, the high-tech, yet sensuous serenity of Norman Foster, and the erotic playgrounds of Nouvel himself. Add to these the reception, restaurant, bar, roof-top spa, and subterranean garage, each again conceived by a different hand. Unusually, the client, Hoteles Silken, imposed few creative or budget restrictions. The individuals and practices selected were chosen for their expertise in various fields, and they worked in total isolation from one another. This has led to criticism, such as the exterior bearing no relevance to the interior, the floors being internalized and unrelated, and the hotel itself being divorced from a wider urban context. Surely such negativity misses the point. The Puerta América, completed in 2005, is no normal hotel. It is more exhibition than architecture. Nouvel describes the building as a clutch of little songs rather than a symphony. The hotel is a destination in itself, and the sheer scale of this unique concept can only be celebrated. (Jennifer Hudson)