What is BBVA City in Madrid
On the outskirts of Madrid, facing the A1 motorway, the new BBVA bank headquarters occupies a site surrounded by new construction, commercial buildings and scattered residential developments. The site is located to the north of the Castellana, the main artery of urban growth that houses the capital's financial centre. At the time BBVA purchased the land, this context was compounded by another determining factor, namely that the site was partially occupied by eight structures under construction whose advanced and correct condition called for them to be incorporated into the development.
The new headquarters concentrates the bank's headquarters, including some 6,000 workplaces, in an intimate building which abstracts itself from the exterior conditions and creates an interior landscape of gardens and low buildings which extends like a carpet over almost the entire surface of the site and absorbs, as far as possible, the pre-existing constructions. This configuration, similar to that of the Arab gardens, gives rise to a friendly city where communications occur horizontally through green spaces on a human scale; the building is divided into small units where it is easier for the worker to feel part of a specific group; and the transparency of the enclosures maximises the views and the overall feeling of community.
