With their proposal “1878-1880”, Spanish architecture firm GVG, a multidisciplinary team led by Daniel Galar Irurre, Josecho Vélaz Ballesteros, and Javier Gil Ayesa, has won the design competition for the renovation of the historic Madrid-Delicias Station, home of the Madrid Railway Museum since 1983.
Organized by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, in coordination with ADIF (Railway Infrastructure Administrator) and the Spanish Railways Foundation, the competition sought the development of a Master Plan for the complex, featuring interventions addressing specific areas such as expanding the exhibition capacity of the Railway Museum, restoring the canopy of the Central Hall of the Former Passenger Building, recovering the original facades and roofs of the entry and exit pavilions, and renovating and retrofitting the northern zone of the Nave de Fomento for complementary museum programming.
Through its design, GVG aims to recover the station's original spirit while simultaneously enhancing its urban and social potential. The jury, which included figures such as Víctor López Cotelo and Iñaki Ábalos Vázquez, praised “the respectful approach to the building's existing spatial, structural, and operational aspects, distinguishing the intervention with elements that do not disrupt its architectural qualities, resulting in a cohesive, clear, and orderly solution.”
The announcement of the competition's winner coincides with the 140th anniversary of the inauguration of the Delicias station, presided over by King Alfonso XII on March 30, 1880. Then known as the Ciudad Real station, the building is one of the finest examples of iron architecture from the last third of the 19th century in Spain and the terminal for the railway line to Extremadura and Portugal.
Heritage Value of the Original Building:
The Railway Museum opened in Spain in 1967 and was housed in Madrid's Fernán Núñez Palace until 1983, when it moved to the Madrid-Delicias Station, which had been closed to railway service since 1971.
Construction on the Madrid-Delicias Station began in 1879, based on a design by French engineer Émile Cacheliévre, who applied a new construction system consisting of a series of reinforced trusses connected to columns and embedded in the foundations, which had been presented by Henri de Dion at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878. As Dion's original structure was lost, the Delicias station has become the oldest surviving building to use this system. The metal structure of the central hall was manufactured in Belgium by the firm Fives-Lille (similar to the Orsay station in Paris) and subsequently transported to Madrid for final assembly. Interestingly, it was used to recreate the Moscow station in Doctor Zhivago.
The main building, highly rationalist and minimally ornamented, was constructed using iron and glass. The central hall is 170 meters long, 35 meters wide, and 22.5 meters high, and could simultaneously accommodate five trains of twenty cars each. The side pavilions, built with two-toned brickwork independent of the load-bearing structure, feature Mudéjar influences, following a style widely used in the city at the time. Its inauguration was a major event for Madrid, as the permanent buildings for the Mediodía and Norte stations did not yet exist.
The building has become a premier example of iron architecture and engineering due to its riveted iron structure—a material central to the 19th-century architectural revolution and a symbol of progress due to its versatility and rapid construction. Its execution incorporated concepts born from the Industrial Revolution, such as prefabrication, assembly-based construction, standardization, and economy of means.
A Phased Intervention:
According to the Ministry, the overall proposal is divided into several phases. Following the relocation of the Library and the Archive, work will begin on adapting the former passenger building for museum use, including the restoration of the roofs, structure, and facades, the transformation of the lobby, a new entrance, and exterior site works.
The subsequent phase will tackle the restoration and structural consolidation of the central hall's canopy, alongside museum adaptations requiring the relocation or protection of the historic vehicles on display. This phase will also include the restoration of the roofing, main roof structure, and facades, as well as exterior site works on the northern and southern facades.
The final phases will focus on restoring the interior and exterior facades and the roofs of the passenger building's lateral wings, concluding with the retrofitting of the area reserved for complementary museum programming.
This article was written by Belén Maiztegui. The translation is powered by AI.
