Architects for Madrid's Luminous Atocha Monument to Speak at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- On March 11, 2007, three years to the day after a series of terrorist bombings in Madrid killed 191 commuter-train passengers and injured more than 1,800 others, King Juan Carlos of Spain inaugurated a brilliantly designed monument to the victims at Atocha railway station, where most of the victims were found.

The beautiful Atocha monument is the work of one of Spain's most promising young architectural firms, Estudio FAM, and its principals will present an illustrated discussion of their work at the University at Buffalo on Nov. 7.

The talk is one of several in the Fall 2007 lecture series presented by the UB School of Architecture and Planning.

Free and open to the public, it will take place at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus and will be followed by a reception for the speakers.

The Atocha monument is distinguished by its two distinct, but interrelated aspects. Outside the station, it takes the form of a 36-foot-high translucent cylinder made of glass bricks, a "potent civic beacon" visible from a considerable distance.

Inside the station, its fluid and light-filled form provokes a meditative and other-worldly mood.

This part of the monument is approached from the railway platform below ground level through a cobalt blue chamber that stands between the platform itself and its street-level "ceiling." The center of the chamber ceiling opens into the cylinder, whose interior is revealed to be a soft, colorless, luminous, curved plastic membrane inflated by air pressure, like the inside of a balloon.

FAM's Mauro Gil-Fournier Esquerra says of the chamber, "It is a silent space, and people cry inside. It's very emotional."

The membrane is screen printed with hundreds of condolences, as well as the names of the victims and comments of survivors and those who risked their lives to rescue them.

The architects say the transparency and permeability of the space opening above them give visitors the feeling "that all the messages of the Madrid citizens are flowing above your head."

During the day, the curvaceous lining is back-lit by daylight passing through the glass cylinder, which makes it possible to read the names and comments. At night, the same effect is produced by luminaires situated in the cavity. The lighting also turns the outside of the cylinder into a luminescent column of light.

Estudio FAM takes its curious name from an aspect of one of their first prize-winning designs -- a room that had what one of them calls a fascinante aroma a manzana -- a fascinating scent of apples.