On the road

Monu­mental Madrid: Antonio Palacios and the Modern Metro­polis

Banks, cultural centers, the Metro, and monumental facades: Antonio Palacios shaped Madrid’s transformation in the early 20th century. A walk from Gran Vía to Calle de Alcalá, taking in his buildings and their legacy in today’s cityscape.

by Jan Dimog in September 2026

Towers, domes, figures and ela­borate stone struc­tures stand out against the blue sky over Madrid. Almost every building seems deter­mined to outdo its neighbour – with another storey, a bay window or at least a sculpture.

My guide is waiting in the lobby of the Vincci Capitol on this spring afternoon. My hotel is already part of the story: com­pleted in 1933, the Art Deco Edi­ficio Carrión, with its soaring tower, is one of the icons of Gran Vía.

A few minutes later, we find our­selves in the midst of an archi­tec­tural contest in stone, taking us back to a time when Madrid was deter­mined to become a metro­polis. One of the archi­tects who gave form to that ambition was Antonio Palacios.

Born in Galicia in 1874, Palacios moved to Madrid to study and became one of the defining archi­tects of the rapidly expanding city. Banks, public buil­dings and the Metro all carried his signature. When I set out to follow in his foot­steps in 2025, Madrid was still marking the 150th anni­versary of his birth with an extensive pro­gramme of events. It was not exactly a redis­covery: his buil­dings had never dis­ap­peared. They remain part of the fabric of everyday life in the city to this day.

Gran Vía pro­vides the perfect stage. Con­s­truction began in 1910, trans­forming both the scale and pace of the city centre. Com­mercial buil­dings, hotels, theatres and cinemas sprang up. Madrid acquired a metro­po­litan bou­levard – and, before long, a skyline.

The Edi­ficio Tele­fónica at Gran Vía 28 represents another facet of this period of trans­for­mation. It was not Palacios but Ignacio de Cár­denas who designed the head­quarters of the tele­com­mu­ni­ca­tions company, con­s­truction of which began in 1926. Inspired by Ame­rican high-rises, it became Spain’s first sky­scraper. While Palacios gave the new metro­polis a monu­mental pre­sence, Cár­denas took it sky­wards.

At the former Hotel Alfonso XIII at Gran Vía 34, Palacios took an existing design by José Yarnoz Larrosa and deve­loped it further for use as a hotel. The monu­mental façade in par­ti­cular, with its large expanses of glazing, columns and corner towers, clearly bears his signature.

We con­tinue towards Calle de Alcalá. The pace of Gran Vía recedes behind us, but the façades become no less imposing. At number 42 stands the Círculo de Bellas Artes. In 2026, the building cele­brates its cen­tenary. Here, Palacios stacked cul­tural func­tions one above the other, almost like a small city: exhi­bition halls, a library, function rooms, a theatre and a restaurant were all accom­mo­dated within this complex building. Above them all rises the tower, a pro­minent feature of the city skyline. Its height had already caused pro­blems during the 1919 com­pe­tition: Palacios’s design was initially excluded because it exceeded the pre­scribed maximum height. The members of the Círculo nevert­heless later chose his pro­posal. A grand gesture on the outside, precise orga­ni­sation of the dif­ferent func­tions within. This tension runs throughout his work.

Just a few steps further on, this tension becomes even more apparent. At Calle de Alcalá 49, four imposing caryatids stand before the former Banco Español del Río de la Plata, designed by Palacios tog­ether with Joaquín Ota­mendi. The bank opened in 1918. Granite, enormous Ionic columns and stone figures con­veyed per­ma­nence, security and solidity. Behind them is a modern struc­tural framework of steel and con­crete.

Today, the building is no longer dedi­cated to money, but to lan­guage. Since 2006, the former bank has served as the head­quarters of the Instituto Cer­vantes. Its vaults no longer hold bank­notes, but per­sonal legacies ent­rusted by figures from the Spanish-speaking cul­tural world. An adaptive reuse with an almost too-perfect sense of dra­ma­turgy. Despite sub­se­quent altera­tions, the building has retained its monu­mental pre­sence.

From here, Calle de Alcalá leads us towards the cul­mi­nation of our walk: Plaza de Cibeles. Here, Madrid seems finally to have decided that even a post office is entitled to look like a palace.

Today’s Palacio de Cibeles was built to a prize-winning 1904 design by Palacios and Ota­mendi and com­pleted in 1918. As the Palacio de Comu­ni­ca­ciones, it brought tog­ether postal ser­vices, tele­graphy and tele­phony. Its purpose was tho­roughly modern; its archi­tec­tural expression deci­dedly cere­monial. Palacios drew on his­to­rical Spanish forms as well as Art Nouveau and Viennese Modernism. Yet despite its enormous scale, the building does not feel like a collage of styles. Rather, it appears to be a con­fident attempt to invent a distinctive archi­tec­tural lan­guage for the new Madrid.

Today, the building houses the Madrid City Council, alongside exhi­bi­tions, events and a viewing platform. Its function may have changed, but its public cha­racter remains: the former com­mu­ni­ca­tions centre has become a city hall and cul­tural venue.

Palacios’s Madrid does not end at the front door. It lies, quite lite­rally, beneath our feet. From 1917 onwards, the architect worked for Madrid’s fled­gling Metro and played a decisive role in shaping its visual identity. He designed sta­tions, ves­ti­bules, plat­forms and ent­rances, creating a distinctive archi­tec­tural identity for the new transport system. White, light-reflecting tiles, colourful ceramic sur­rounds and striking ent­rance struc­tures were intended to aid ori­en­tation and make the descent under­ground – which was still an unfa­miliar expe­rience at the time – feel less con­fined. The ent­rance pavi­lions at the Sol and Gran Vía sta­tions became visible markers of the Metro within the city­scape.

On our way back towards Gran Vía, we pass the Edi­ficio Metró­polis with its distinctive dome. Designed by the French archi­tects Jules and Raymond Février and com­pleted by Luis Esteve, it forms part of the same picture of a city reinventing itself archi­tec­tu­rally at the beginning of the 20th century.

Modern Madrid was not the work of a single architect. French influences, Ame­rican sky­scrapers, Viennese Modernism and Spanish tra­dition all come tog­ether within just a few streets.

Few archi­tects were as adept as Palacios at com­bining these influences into a distinctive archi­tec­tural form. A century later, his buil­dings have not become empty monu­ments. People work inside them, visit exhi­bi­tions, learn Spanish or descend into the Metro.

By the time we reach Gran Vía again, the light has changed. The façades are beginning to glow, and once more our gaze is drawn upwards. The archi­tec­tural contest in stone con­tinues. Madrid was deter­mined to become a metro­polis – and these streets still reveal just how seriously the city took that ambition.

Text: Jan Dimog

Photos (all): © Jan Dimog