La piel dura. The hard skin
Edificio Beatriz, Beatriz Building, Madrid
Eleuterio Población Knappe

Date: 2013
Author: Eduardo Delgado Orusco
Publisher: Lampreave
Pages: 427

Among all possible approximations for achieving the best assessment of the Beatriz building, we opted for a series of contextualization: At first place, the international evolution of office space understood as a functional program typical of the 20th century.  Second, the reception of this model in our country, as while we focused on the Madrid case as occupying the first place in the Spanish financial panorama and having  particular cultural, economic and technical aspects. 

In the main chapters of the book, we have made a first approach to the undeniably modern option adapted, even in the early times, by the Banco Popular as an architecture promoter for its own consumption.

The hard skin

Book: The hard skin. Beatriz Building, Madrid. Eleuterio Población Knappe
Publisher: Lampreave
Chapter: Building works and projects by Reset Arquitectura
Date: 2013
Published work: Chairmanship space of Banco Popular, Beatriz Building
Pages: 365-381

In the summer of 2006 this architecture firm was commissioned to undertake a study on the “upgrading” of the top floors of the Beatriz Building and the general installations, because apart from the usual maintenance there had been virtually no interventions whatsoever since the complex was inaugurated at the end of 1975.

In addition to our project for the seventh floor and first and second attic levels, these last few years have provided us with the opportunity to explore other possible interventions throughout the building as a whole, always with a view to its “upgrading”.

However, apart from the analysis involved in the various individual projects proposed, perhaps the most interesting exercise has been the preparation of a comprehensive strategy to lend coherence to all of these interventions.