Former Pacific Power Plant, in Madrid
A Cultural
The Engine Building has a main educational and cultural use, as an Interpretation Center of the Madrid Metro.
First picture
General Information
The inauguration in 1919 of the first Metro line, by the then known Metropolitan Company Alfonso XIII, marked the materialization of a project that had begun to take shape at the end of the 1879th century, after the construction of the London Underground (1896) and before the construction of the first metropolitan railways in continental Europe (Budapest, 1900; Paris, XNUMX).
That first line of the Madrid Metro was born from the initiative of the engineers Miguel Otamendi, Antonio González Echarte and Carlos Mendoza, who in 1914 had presented to the Ministry of Public Works a project of what would become the first sections of the net.
The Metro, which served to articulate the city and speed up travel from peripheral neighborhoods to the center, grew rapidly in the years before the Civil War, with the construction of the central section of the current Line 1 (Tetuán-Puente de Vallecas) , of a large part of Line 2 (Cuatro Caminos-Diego de León y Ventas), of the initial section of Line 3 (Sol-Embajadores) and of the so-called Ópera-Norte Branch.
At the beginning of the contest, the Madrid Metro network was 20 kilometers long, had 38 stations and served 180.000.000 passengers a year. After the war, the Madrid Metropolitan Company, still privately owned, undertook the construction of line 4 and the northern section of line 3, from Sol to Argüelles. But, as of 1955, the State took over the new Metro works, thus initiating the progressive nationalization of the Madrid network.
Along with the stations and tunnels, Metro undertook, from its origins, the construction of auxiliary buildings, electrical substations and garages. In the first years of the Metropolitano's operation, three companies supplied electricity: “Hidroeléctrica Santillana”, “Unión Eléctrica Madrileña” and “Hidroeléctrica Española”. The electricity supply restrictions, aggravated by the harsh low water that occurred in 1921 and 1922, which prevented the expansion of the network and the increase in the number of trains, made the Company consider the need for energy self-sufficiency, creating a power station that would serve , both for the transformation of the alternating current supplied by the electricity companies at 15.000 V into direct current at 600 V necessary for the traction of the trains and for the generation of electricity from fossil fuel in the event of a supply failure.
The lands chosen for this purpose were owned by the Company and were located in the Pacifico neighborhood, occupying an area of 16.000 square meters, limited by Granada, Valderribas and Cavanilles streets. The set of buildings for the Pacífico Power Plant and Substation was designed by Antonio Palacios Ramilo, while the report on the machinery installation project was written by the engineers José María and Manuel Otamendi. The project obtained a municipal license in 1922, and was carried out under the direction of Chief Engineer Carlos Laffitte. The works ended on March 20, 1923, being inaugurated in the presence of the kings on June 14, 1924.
To cover the required functions, Antonio Palacios designed a complex originally made up of five buildings: A large rectangular-shaped warehouse for the location of the diesel engines, called the Engine Warehouse, another smaller warehouse attached to the previous one for the battery of accumulators (building destroyed and replaced by another of modern invoice lacking architectural values), a small three-storey building attached to the head of the warehouse to house smaller electrical equipment, another for offices, workshop and side-attached housing to the ship, also with three floors, and finally, a single-family house for the person in charge of the facilities, currently altered internally for office use. Each of the buildings was conceived as an independent unit in order to give autonomy to their respective functions. Although all of them have common characteristics, each one is adapted in its design to a different function.
The property object of the declaration is a sub-plot of 2.538 square meters located at the confluence of Valderribas and Sánchez Barcáiztegui streets, delimited to the outside by a period fence, formed in its main part by a stone masonry wall and brick factory , reinforced with pilasters to which the wrought iron bars attack. The two entrances to the plot from the perimeter road are flanked by pilasters crowned with lanterns of an elaborate design by the architect Antonio Palacios. The rest of the exterior enclosure is a brick masonry wall. Internally, the sub-plot is not fenced, pending the development of the rest of the land owned by Metro de Madrid that is not the subject of this declaration.
The main construction, properly called the Engine Warehouse, has a rectangular plan in a north-south direction and is developed on a single level above ground, except at the southern end, where there is a narrow mezzanine with the control panels of the power plant and auxiliary units . The basement houses maintenance galleries for access to equipment and pipeline layout. The entrance is through the gable end or north face through a windbreak introduced in the recent restoration.
The facades are arranged vertically, articulated from pilasters that coincide with the trusses of the roof structure. Between the pilasters there is a double alignment of window openings topped by lowered arches. The ones on the lower level are large vertical windows with steel carpentry with an exploded view in a grid. Those on the upper level are smaller and of a similar type. The building starts from the ground with a small masonry plinth cut out by the large windows. The rest of the facades are made of exposed brick, except for the pilasters and false imposts plastered with lime mortar.
The roof of the ship is made up of steel trusses, of the “polonceau” type, on which straps and metal blocks support the deck that makes up the roof apron.
Inside the walls are plastered and partially tiled with white tile placed diagonally. The tiled parts are outlined with simple blue lines as borders, drawn with a decorative sense close to Viennese modernism. In some sections of the wall, more complex decorative elements made of glazed ceramic with metallic reflections are arranged, as false capitals. The floor of the warehouse is made of red ceramic tiles with a double curb of light-colored tiles, limiting the existing machinery in the warehouse.
The interior walls have variable thickness, using the horizontal stepping as support for the bridge-crane of the ship.
The building or body of transformers, attached to the south gable of the Engine Shed, is a narrow three-storey rectangle that gives the opportunity to project a more complex façade than the nave itself. Vertically articulated by pilasters, these are finished off in pinnacles that exceed the height of the cornice. Here, the order of openings is narrower than in the rest of the complex and the windows are grouped two by two, separated by narrow mullions. This façade is set back with respect to Valderribas street, limiting a small access patio. Above the roof balustrade, the south gable of the Engine Building appears, with a stepped profile, incorporating the Metro emblem. It has been restored in its outer envelope.
The office or administrative building is a rectangular block with a single bay laterally attached to the Engine Shed. It has three floors and a basement, focusing all interest on the west façade, vertically articulated by pairs of pilasters that contrast against the brickwork background and extend into pinnacles. The central body, which houses the entrances and the staircase, is slightly higher than the rest. The format of the openings and the facade treatment is similar to that of the transformer body described above, but here the windows are grouped three by three. It has been restored in its outer envelope, with no notable elements of interest inside.
The personality of Antonio Palacios' architecture, capable of providing a coherent response to functional programs of a very diverse nature, but always preserving a perfectly identifiable imprint, meant that, for decades, the image of Metro de Madrid was associated with his figure. In the case of the Old Pacific Power Plant, we find its mark in the ease and elegance with which it is capable of organizing large surfaces of facades, in the use for practical and decorative purposes of the tile indoors or in the design of locksmith elements, strictly functional in the work areas and more elaborate in the visible parts, such as the lanterns included in the perimeter fence.
The decoration understood in the traditional way is reserved for very significant places: It rescues formal and decorative resources from past or current styles, such as references to neo-Mudejar in the use of brick and stone, producing the characteristic red and white bichromy of this style, as well as the use of the stepped pinion of the main facade. On the other hand, the influence of Viennese secessionist modernism is observed, with taste for the stacked facades, the windows organized in bands and the segmented arches, the very marked imposts that resemble capitals, the decorative elements in parallel lines, all interpreted with personality own.
In addition to its architectural envelope, from the point of view of its strict industrial heritage, the Pacific Power Plant is one of the complexes that best conserves all the machinery and equipment of the activity, allowing a coherent and complete display of it, from buried fuel tanks, fluid transport networks, auxiliary tanks, electrical energy production and transformation equipment, complementary refrigeration and control facilities, spare and maintenance material and tools for operators.
The three large diesel engines, of 1.500 HP each, and the alternators coupled to them for the generation of electric power, which were in operation from 1923 to 1977, stand out above all.
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