MADRID | Ctba Towers | 800ft+

dbee84 · #1 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 12:25 PM**

A few years ago Real Madrid sold its training grounds in the north of the Spanish capital, making a pile of money. This took a few years longer that expected because at the time there were laws restrincting the max height of buildings in that zone due to the proximity of the barajas airport. However real Madrid with all its money and power managed to change this, so buildings up to 250m (820ft) could be built.

The construction of these towers adds to the huge construction boom taking place at the moment in Madrid, only beaten by Moscow in Europe.

The 4 companies that bought these grounds intended to build what are to be the tallest skyscrapers in the city at 250 meters.(Compared with the Picasso tower at 157m). These four towers all have modern designs from famous architects, and although currentely still under construction have already changed the skyline for Madrid.

Taken from skyscrapercity and www.urbanity.es:

TORRE DE CRISTAL: CESAR PELLI (Built the petrona towers in Malaysia)
similar look to the new NYC freedom tower

THE SACYR VALLERMOSO TOWER
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...llehermoso.jpg

THE REPSOL TOWER: FOSTER

THE ESPACIO TOWER

These towers are currentely about half way through construction with the Espacio tower tallest at about 175m.

and a video of its building evolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DgFDFFYYeQ

Already you can see these buildings from most parts of Madrid.

M II A II R II K · #2 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 12:45 PM**

Looks like some great additions to the skyline.

Fabb · #3 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 2:04 PM**

Why are they all on one side of the big avenue ?
The skyline will be dramatically imbalanced. Unless there's an ambitious plan for the other side.

dbee84 · #4 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 3:36 PM**

There are, its a project called "operacion chamartin" that includes up to 15 skyscrapers of up to 50 stories, but that project hasnt been aproved yet.. give it a few years

giallo · #5 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 4:49 PM**

I like all four. A very interesting development with four strikingly different designs

Please keep us updated, dbee84.

Fabb · #6 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 6:25 PM**

Torre de Cristal has a good potential. I'm not sure I like Foster's work.

NYC2ATX · #7 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 9:22 PM**

Unless you're looking straight up that avenue, the skyline won't really be "unbalanced"

NYC2ATX · #8 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 9:24 PM**

Unless you're looking straight up that avenue, the skyline won't really be "unbalanced"

How come it took so long to create a thread for this project?

NYC2ATX · #9 Posted **Oct 16, 2006, 9:24 PM**

Unless you're looking straight up that avenue, the skyline won't really be "unbalanced"

How come it took so long to create a thread for this project?

kalmia · #10 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 7:18 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by StatenIslander237

Unless you're looking straight up that avenue, the skyline won't really be "unbalanced"

How come it took so long to create a thread for this project?

kalmia · #11 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 7:28 AM**

I was wondering about a thread for Espacio. Is there one?

I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about this building. The show is Extreme Engineering. They showed the process that goes into pouring one floor and extending the core and columns. It was interesting. They put up the shoring and set the forms. They laid the rebar. They showed how the concrete pumping works. They had trouble with the pump at one point and had to use a crane bucket.

dbee84 · #12 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 12:06 PM**

The best render of the four towers is this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7gByt5A1uI

I´ve heard about that documentary but have never been able to see it! The evoultion of these towers have been followed very closely in www.urbanity.es and other pages so I was suprised they hadn´t created one here! Here are a few pics taken from urbanity about the evoulution of these towers:

There´s a lot of variety in the public opinion about Fosters tower, some people love it, some think its ugly and looks like a giant transformer. The torre de cristal seems to be the most popular at the moment from renders, but we´ll have to wait until they´re finished to see if that doesnt change.

Espacio tower evoultion throughout 2005 (Made by urbanity.es)

Early repsol tower:

jan 2006

Feb 2006

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

June 2006

July 2006

August 2006

This was the moment the espacio tower over took the Picasso tower as the tallest building in the city, of 157m
This is a diagram created by "Theremin" comparing its height with other structures in Madrid

(The picasso tower)

Sept 2006

Then one day, this happened:

Aparentely a light overheated some oil that caught fire, lighting up the top of the espacio tower like a torch. This didnt affect the structure at all, but affected some machinery that cost the company over 1M Euros to repair. By coincidence, spain has just won the basketball league and were celebrating under the slanted kio towers just over a Km away, so the place was packed with TV cameras and was televised to the entire country. Although this fire wasnt much, it reminded everyone of the Windsor tower fire a year and a half ago, when a 30 story building in the financial district was completely destroyed in a huge blaze.

(Windsor fire) http://www.infowars.com/articles/wor...tted_tower.htm

The fire stoped the construction on Espacio for a couple of weeks and is now back on track at about 175m, and the repsol tower approaching 150m.
Oct 2006:

Jasonhouse · #13 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 1:27 PM**

Nice buildings, but the layout looks like total shite at street level...

Bergenser · #14 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 3:14 PM**

This project is great! Finally something happend in Europe

it's just Moscow and Madrid that are construction big projects in Europe today. Hope this trend wil be spread to the rest of Europe too.

WonderlandPark · #15 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 3:17 PM**

These are so far along alread, what took so long to create a thread? I like the Foster tower, at least it is interesting under construction.

dbee84 · #16 Posted **Oct 17, 2006, 4:22 PM**

I was following its progress in a Spanish forum, and I too was suprised that nobody started one here now I looked, so I did.

They are expected to finish around mid 2007

Im happy Madrid has put its name near the top of the euro-scrapers list, hopefully they´ll aprove further construction on the other side of the avenue.

Theres also a gap left where the ex-windsor tower used to sit, which they still have to make their minds up about what to build there: Its right in middle of the highest priced area of Madrid.