Regional archives and library

Joaquín Leguina Madrid Regional Library and Archives in the former El Águila Brewery

From the outset of this project in the 1994 public competition proposal, the powerful, ominous open spaces of the former El Aguila brewery, unknown to the public, were the driving force for the arrangement of the different activities through the construction of voids, interfaces and expansions of surface areas as part of an effort to visualise an exterior space which modernism regarded as a mere void. The space between the buildings has thus become the definition of the line, upgrading multiple itineraries, planes of activity and information that change the linear nature of the unit as a whole, establishing invisible links between the different constructions with their industrial scale and materials.
The Madrid Regional Government Archives and Library in the former El Águila brewery are a centre for the preservation, custody and dissemination of the Region’s historic documentary heritage, ultimately aimed at ensuring the transparency of administrative processes and citizen’s rights. The construction, an extension of the Paseo del Prado cultural axis, is part of the political desire to open Madrid to the south and the cultural desire to safeguard the remains of the city’s historic industrial heritage.
The Regional Archives cover 30000 m². They are organised into three modules: contributions, storage and public attention. The storage building can hold 100 km of shelves, structured into six equal floors, surrounded by a thermal quilt in the form of an ambiguously translucent double façade; the ground plan organisation is a response to the challenge of producing architecture within the limits imposed by the strict fire prevention regulations.
The Regional Library covers 10000 m². It resolves a diverse multimedia library programme through the renovation of the ominous industrial spaces. The silos that used to hold barley now hold every book published in the Madrid Region.
For Madrid, the integrated Regional Archives and Library complex is like two intertwined hands, a symbol of the desirable future convergence between environment and architecture that has been already implemented in this case. One hand shelters protects the historic heritage and the other provides protection for the local culture, our future heritage.