The elevation for the Evangelical Spanish Church, Madrid
1879 - 1880. Grey wash, Grey-brown wash, Pencil on silk paper.Not on display
Drawing of Juan de Madrazo’s architectural offer to design the first evangelical Spanish church in 1880. In the 19th century, there arises on the part of the Anglican Community the need to execute a church of new plant. Juan de Madrazo prestigious member of the Anglican Church, receives the order of realizing a representative church ca. 1880. As Madrazo explains in the same project regarding the program (G4605) :" its spire has 113 feet of elevation, and of land a space occupation of 17,000 square feet, it will have schools for children of both sexes and foreigners, in which there will be 200 seats of each one. Under the direction of Mr. Juan de Madrazo, whose budget has been estimated at 50.000 duros soon". After this brief and concise explanation of the architect n his project, it is intuition that he would have been the architect director of the works, if he had not died on March 9, 1880.
The idea of Madrazo is the effort to achieve architectural beauty, full of proportion and luminosity, through neo-Gothic architecture. The drawings of the proposals belong to the main façade, made from the same point of view, which exclusively frames the west façade and outlines the side school buildings.The solution finally executed for this church can be considered a case of perfect study of the Gothic architectural elements. In the case of Madrazo, the solution finally executed for this church can be considered a perfect study of the Gothic architectural elements. In the professional activity of Madrazo, and more specifically in this project, we distinguish the architectural movement that has been called neo-gothic rationalism, according to the lines marked by Viollet-le-Duc.
The attractiveness of these preliminary drawings about this church is the evolution shown by Madrazo in the layout and layout of the program. Although, in all these drawings, the architect shows his graphic dexterity, he also reflects creative intuition. All the sketches that the architect draws on this church from the beginning are rationalist, reflecting the thought and conception of the project (D7948, D7949, D7950, D7951, D7985, D7986). As can be seen in the different sketches, it is a Neo-Gothic architecture with a proposal finally defined in a plan and schematic elevation of the Evangelical Church, where it seems that the church tower was the base on which the elevation is centered.
Fernández Martínez, Margarita, Dibujos de la propuesta arquitectónica de Juan de Madrazo para idear la primera Iglesia Evangélica Española en 1880. Revista de EGA:expresión gráfica arquitectónica, https://doi.org/10.4995/ega.2019.10877, 2019, p.120-131