EMT Museum
Location: Madrid (Spain)
Year: 2025
Type: public competition. Administrative disqualification
Client: Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid, S.A.
Area: 4.450 sqm
Team: Francisco Marqués Vilaplana, Francisco Garrido, Rocio Martinez - Fons, Luis Rubio Marín
Collaborators: Bianca Grilli
Building engineer: Rosalino Daza Fernandéz
Museography: Lucas Manuel García Vacas
Resource: Fun Palace, Cedric Price
The new museum for Madrid’s EMT is located on a strategic site, completing the configuration of the Paseo de los Melancólicos and mediating the connection between Madrid Río and the city. The project responds to this condition by proposing a calm yet forceful architecture, endowed with a light monumentality capable of bringing cohesion to a fragmented and diverse built environment.
The building is conceived as a flexible and dynamic piece of infrastructure. Its central element is a large hall that, functioning as a covered square, houses the bus collection. To maximise versatility, the hall is entirely free of vertical supports, allowing vehicles to be arranged and manoeuvred with complete freedom. This solution accommodates future acquisitions as well as special events, taking advantage of the direct relationship with the park established through two large, symmetrically placed gates on the west façade. The powerful roof structure is fully accessible, operating as a technical floor—a large scenic grid.
The depot is located on the basement level and is accessible to visitors either through general circulation routes or via the broad ramp designed for bus entry. In contrast to the light, metallic main hall, the basement appears as a denser, heavier, excavated architecture. The rest of the programme unfolds along the lateral ends of the building, within two nearly symmetrical volumes that embrace the central hall. Leveraging its condition as a freestanding object within the park, the project provides differentiated access points according to user type.
The main entrance extends from Calle del Duque de Tovar, linking the building with the green network. The configuration and proximity of the temporary exhibition rooms, multimedia space, multipurpose hall, and auditorium (also conceived as a multifunctional venue) allow these spaces to operate as a small convention centre, hosting a wide range of cultural or educational activities.
A second access from Calle de San Epifanio serves the administrative areas, maintenance staff, technical library, and educational spaces. This ensures that specialised visitors and training activities for children or young people can take place without interfering with the museum circuit, while still maintaining the option of entering it from the ground-floor lobby.
Tectonically, the project seeks a degree of refinement within an industrial-like language, consistent with the pragmatic and sustainable approach to construction. The exterior envelope consists of recycled cast-aluminium panels whose texture and pattern amplify the façade’s vibrancy and its shifting response to light, resonating with the dynamic vegetation of the park and the movement of the city. The upper panels vary in relief to form a frieze designed to host a LED system, enabling the museum to announce its internal activity from afar and act as a visual beacon for passers-by.