Almudena Cathedral took more than a century to complete, changing from a neo-Gothic proposal to a more classical exterior beside the Royal Palace. Its long construction reflects Madrid’s delayed status as a diocese and the political and financial interruptions of modern Spanish history.
Quick facts
- The first stone was laid in 1883.
- The design shifted from neo-Gothic toward a more classical style.
- Pope John Paul II consecrated the cathedral in 1993.
More places in Madrid
Atocha Station Tropical Garden
A tropical garden fills Atocha’s former passenger hall, bringing humid greenery and water into a major rail station. Its location is the surprise: a nineteenth-century transport space became an indoor landscape when the station was expanded for a new era of long-distance rail.
CaixaForum Madrid
CaixaForum Madrid turns a former power station into a cultural center whose most striking feature is its apparent suspension above the street. Brickwork, a lifted base, and a living wall make the building itself an exhibit in urban reuse.
Campo del Moro Gardens
Campo del Moro’s broad landscape garden rises toward the Royal Palace, offering a softer counterpart to the geometric Sabatini Gardens. Its name recalls a medieval encampment tradition, while the garden visitors see was shaped centuries later under nineteenth-century royal patronage.
Casa de Campo
Casa de Campo began as royal hunting land and is now a vast public park on Madrid’s western edge. Its transition from Crown property to city land in 1931 transformed an exclusive landscape into shared space, while walls and bridges preserve earlier traces.
Casa de Campo Cable Car
The Casa de Campo cable car was designed to turn a long urban crossing into a brief aerial passage between Madrid and its great park. Since its 1969 inauguration, the ride has offered a changing view of the city’s western landscape and the Casa de Campo beyond.
Cerralbo Museum
The Cerralbo Museum preserves a late nineteenth-century aristocratic home assembled as both residence and collection. Its rooms reflect the interests of Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa, the seventeenth Marquis of Cerralbo, who left his collections to the state for public access.