The Palacio de Comunicaciones de Madrid is an emblematic building in the city of Madrid and the Madrid city council seat. Located in the Plaza de Cibeles, it was designed and built by Antonio Palacios Joaquin Otamendi as headquarters for the Post and Telegraph Company of Spain.
The building, in a very personal style of the two architects, who subsequently developed at the Hospital de Jornaleros of Maudes, pull from a variety of sources to be integrated into a coherent whole: the neo-Gothic, especially the works of Viollet-le-Duc, findings of sincerity and structural materials for architects and engineers as Gustave Eiffel and Otto Wagner, and the passion of Palaces by the regional Spanish styles, specifically the late Gothic and the work of Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón.
The building was designed as a "total Artwork" (in German, Gesamtkunstwerk), in which the smallest detail, from lighting up the desks of the Board of operations or the ventilation system, form a unitary artistic whole serving its role as a House Post Office. It has undergone a reform to adapt to the new headquarters of City Hall.
(Please pardon the Google translation from Spanish.)
