The Palacio de la Prensa is a brick-clad building in Madrid, Spain.

History and description

It is located in the Gran Vía, near the

Callao Square The Callao Square ( es, plaza del Callao) is located at the centre of the Spanish capital of Madrid. History and description Shaped in 1861, the square was formally opened in June 1866; its name remembers the May 1866 battle of Callao between t ...

, in the Universidad neighborhood. Commissioned by the Madrid Press Association (APM) to serve as corporative headquarters, the building was designed by

Pedro Muguruza Pedro Muguruza Otaño (1893–1952) was a Spanish architect and Falangist politician. Biography Born in Madrid on 25 May 1893, his family came from Elgoibar (Gipuzkoa). He earned an architecture degree from the School of Architecture of Madr ...

. The first sketches date from 1924. It was intended to provide a mixed use, including apartments for rent, offices, a movie theatre (ultimately located in the northern end of the plot) and a concert hall. The three different volumes the building features convey this circumstance. The 16-floor southern tower rises to a height of 58 metres. Buildings works started on 11 July 1925. Works finished by 1929. The building opened on 2 January 1930 with a projection of ''The Way of All Flesh'', although it was formally inaugurated on 7 April 1930. After mortgaging the building because of huge debts accumulated during the Francoist dictatorship, the APM decided to move its headquarters to a small palace in the Salamanca district for free. Two floors of the building hosted the headquarters of the regional branch of the PSOE from 2009 to 2015. It was declared ''Bien de Interés Patrimonial'' ("Good of Patrimonial Interest", BIP) by the regional government in 2017.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * * {{Commons and category, Palacio de la Prensa, Madrid Buildings and structures in Universidad neighborhood, Madrid Gran Vía (Madrid) Buildings and structures completed in 1929