A route through the main landmarks of modern architecture and engineering in Puerto Real.
This is a route through the main landmarks of modern architecture and engineering in Puerto Real. Discover the buildings of two national architecture prizewinners, cutting-edge industrial engineering or the most innovative urban planning solutions of their time.
From the Matagorda high tension tower to the Puerto Real seafront promenade, passing through the Engineer’s Houses or the system of walkways and viewpoints of the Metropolitan Park of La Algaida.
1. MATAGORDA HIGH VOLTAGE PYLONS
Designed by Italian engineer Alberto Toscano, they were completed in 1960 and, at more than 150 meters high, are the tallest structures of this type in the world and one of the most defining elements of the skyline shared by Cadiz and Puerto Real. Two hollow truncated cone-shaped masts that draw a smooth curve from the top (6 meters in diameter) to the base (21 meters) and are crowned by a 70-meter crossarm with a rhomboidal profile that supports the high-voltage cabling that runs from tower to tower. Its 19,000 square meters contain 90,849 screws each.
2. HIGHER ANDALUSIAN CENTER FOR MARINE STUDIES
One of the most emblematic of the University Campus of Puerto Real, the building, inaugurated in 1992 and designed by José María Montes Díaz de la Guardia, consists of three naves in the shape of a three-bladed propeller covered by a barrel vault, united internally by a circular floor, as a lobby, covered by a glass dome and a cupuline resting on twelve pillars, and in which there is a planetarium and a museum on nautical astronomy and navigation.
3. MARISMA DE LOS TORUÑOS AND PINAR DE LA ALGAIDA METROPOLITAN PARK
This park connects Puerto Real and the neighboring town of El Puerto de Santa Maria through a natural area of the first order in which stand out excellent pine forests, salt marshes and estuaries, remains of the first railroad line in Andalusia or bird watching points. It is also a perfect place to practice sports. The park’s system of bridges, lookouts and walkways is the work of National Architecture Prize winner César Portela.
4. TELEPHONE BUILDING
It is a building designed by Julio Cano Lasso, Gold Medal of Architecture in 1991, and rationalist architect of the so-called Madrid School, cradle of the great masters of post-war Spanish architecture. This is a large building that stands out, as in other works by the same architect, for its use of brick and the abstraction of volume.
5. CAM, PROMENADE AND CULTURAL CENTER
It is a public space, designed by the National Urbanism Award, José Seguí, whose design, abstraction capacity and scale, fits into the main public space, defining it, and the landscape from the sea. It is a space of great architectural quality implanted in isolation whose modern character contrasts with that of the adjacent Historic-Artistic Ensemble, making it visible.
6. POST OFFICE BUILDING
Designed by architect Alejandro de la Sota, winner of the National Architecture Award in 1973. It stands out for its clean lines and the inclusion of the technical and constructive advances of the time. It houses the Post Office and large housing units on each floor. Today Alejandro de la Sota is considered one of the masters of Spanish Architecture.
7. ENGINEER’S HOUSES
In the wake of the work of engineers Eduardo Torroja or Félix Candela, Joaquín Barquín y Barón, designed this set of five igloo houses designed by engineer Luffini, which stand out for the simplicity of their design and economy of means, and whose objective was to solve the problem of decent and at the same time economical housing for the middle and working class.
