Exterior View of the Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
Exterior View of the Apartments | © ArchEyes

The Princesa building was completed in 1975 by Fernando Higueras and Antonio Miró. Originally built for military retirees, it is now the inner-city home of many design-oriented entrepreneurs and young families.

Princesa Apartments Technical Information

I finished my degree at the time when Mies Van der Rohe was influencing all those who had just left the School with his rationalist and cubic architecture, speaking that less is more. It always seemed to me that less is less, and more is more.

– Fernando Higueras

Princesa Apartments Photographs
Aerial View of the apartments in Madrid
Aerial View | © Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Monocle
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras
Princesa Apartments / Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
© Personal Archives Fernando Higueras

Text by the Architects

The Princesa building was completed in 1975 by Fernando Higueras for the Military Houses Patronage in Madrid. The plot is perched on the northern corner of Conde Duque district between Alberto Aguilera and San Bernardo streets, a downtown area of unquestionable historical richness.

Higueras and Miro made an ambitious proposal where both architecture and urbanism issues were analyzed to solve a complex intervention.

Both bunker and luxury home for Franco’s loyal cadre, the building is a concrete testament to the contradictions and bold optimism of Spain’s transition to democracy.1

The architects decided to isolate the building as much as possible from the urban surrounding noise; therefore, balconies were shaped in such a way that traffic noise would bounce back to the street. Hanging gardens made a prolific vertical vegetation curtain between the terraces without preventing the entrance of light.

The building structure is made of reinforced concrete, exposed with its color and texture, to achieve enormous savings by avoiding bricklaying works to cover the structure.

Princesa Apartments by Higueras Plans
Floor Plan of the apartments in Madrid
Floor Plan | © Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
Section plan of the apartments in Madrid
Section of the Apartments | © Fernando Higueras + Antonio Miró
Princesa Apartments Image Gallery
About Fernando Higueras

Fernando de Higueras Díaz (1930 – January 30, 2008) was a Spanish architect. He was born in Madrid. He graduated as an architect from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid in 1959. His work is recognized worldwide as an original and exciting union of constructivist, rationalist, and organic architecture. Higueras was also a musician, a painter, and a photographer. He died in Madrid, aged 77 years.

Other Works from Fernando Higueras

  1. Monocle EXPO NO. 83: ON THE HOME FRONT