Madrid Rio, Madrid
European Garden Award 2012
Recently the city of Madrid dug 43 kilometres of tunnels into which motorways and major streets disappeared. This was a great opportunity for a master plan to design the reclaimed riverbanks and the new urban area.
The plans by West8 included the Salón de Pinos, designed as a linear green space, to link the existing and newly designed urban spaces with each other along the Manzanares River. It is located almost entirely on top of the motorway tunnel. The green line through the city is a “choreography” of 8.000 pine trees with a repertoire of different cuts.
Huerta de la Partida is now a modern interpretation of an orchard with a wide variety of fruit trees in groups. For the Arganzuela Park, the dominating motive is the water.
Two slow traffic bridges are also serving as iconic landmarks, creating places where the river can really be experienced. The first parts of the project were completed in spring 2007 and in 2011 the project “Madrid Rio” has been completed.