The Building
Antonio Palacios
The Círculo de Bellas Artes building, more than 90 years old, is perhaps one of the best examples of architectural desing at the service of its activity, without disdaining the ornamental and stylistic characteristics of the time. Antonio Palacios' project aimed to combine architectural and ornamental grandeur with the artistic, cultural and -at that time- recreational function of the institution.
The headquarters of the Círculo, which already had 5,000 members in 1927, not only had spaces for the arts, exhibitions, conferences, projections or performances, but also included a swimming pool, billiards, barbershop, study room, dance hall for long parties, among which was the mythical masked ball, fencing, radio broadcasts, etc.
Architecture
The Círculo de Bellas Artes building, located in the surroundings of Madrid's two main urban arteries, Alcalá Street and Gran Vía, acquired an outstanding iconographic value in the urban scenography of the early 20th century. The heterogeneity of its arrangement, as well as the antagonism between the semantic composition of the interior and the exterior, made it an outstanding symbol of the architecture of a city that was advancing towards modernity with considerable parsimony.
