Bankinter
Madrid, Spain · 1977
A premier precedent for brick craftsmanship and rationalist facade composition, demonstrating how a modern office building can achieve monumental depth and texture through deep punched openings and integrated decorative bronze panels.
- What we like about this project
- Intricately detailed bronze relief panels set within the upper double-height window bays.
Materials
- red-brick
- glass
- bronze
- stone
Visual identifiers
- red-brick-facade
- punched-windows
- deep-reveals
- bronze-relief-panels
- rationalist-grid
Style tags
- post-modern
- rationalist
- monolithic
- contextualist
Visual tags
- brickwork
- monolithic
- urban-infill
- post-modernism
- spanish-architecture
- window-grid
- Geometry
- A tall, slender slab volume with a flat roofline. The facade features a highly disciplined grid of deeply recessed, square punched windows on the lower levels, transitioning to larger, double-height vertical openings with decorative bronze relief panels on the upper levels.
- Facade system
- Load-bearing brick masonry appearance with deeply recessed punched glazing.
- Structural guess
- Reinforced concrete frame with brick masonry cavity walls.
- Spatial scale
- Multi-story mid-rise office building, with human scale maintained through the repetitive window modules.
- Lighting
- Soft, directional daylight casting subtle shadows within the deep window reveals, highlighting the texture of the brickwork.
- Atmosphere
- Stately and composed, balancing the warmth of red brick with the rigorous order of its window grid.
- Environmental context
- Urban setting framed by mature deciduous trees, with neighboring mid-rise buildings visible in the background.
- Spatial experience
- The building presents a massive, solid brick presence to the street, with deep window reveals that create a sense of protective enclosure and structural depth.
- Composition rhythm
- A strict horizontal and vertical grid of square windows on the lower floors, capped by larger, rhythmically spaced double-height openings above.
- Style reading
- Post-Modern Rationalism
- Program
- Office headquarters
- Perspective
- Exterior Facade
- Discipline
- architecture
- Materials
- red-brick, glass, bronze, stone
- Visual identifiers
- red-brick-facade, punched-windows, deep-reveals, bronze-relief-panels, rationalist-grid
- Style tags
- post-modern, rationalist, monolithic, contextualist
- Visual tags
- brickwork, monolithic, urban-infill, post-modernism, spanish-architecture, window-grid
- Geometry
- A tall, slender slab volume with a flat roofline. The facade features a highly disciplined grid of deeply recessed, square punched windows on the lower levels, transitioning to larger, double-height vertical openings with decorative bronze relief panels on the upper levels.
- Facade system
- Load-bearing brick masonry appearance with deeply recessed punched glazing.
- Structural guess
- Reinforced concrete frame with brick masonry cavity walls.
- Spatial scale
- Multi-story mid-rise office building, with human scale maintained through the repetitive window modules.
- Lighting
- Soft, directional daylight casting subtle shadows within the deep window reveals, highlighting the texture of the brickwork.
- Atmosphere
- Stately and composed, balancing the warmth of red brick with the rigorous order of its window grid.
- Environmental context
- Urban setting framed by mature deciduous trees, with neighboring mid-rise buildings visible in the background.
- Spatial experience
- The building presents a massive, solid brick presence to the street, with deep window reveals that create a sense of protective enclosure and structural depth.
- Composition rhythm
- A strict horizontal and vertical grid of square windows on the lower floors, capped by larger, rhythmically spaced double-height openings above.
- Style reading
- Post-Modern Rationalism
- Program
- Office headquarters
- Perspective
- Exterior Facade
- Discipline
- architecture