
Between a motorway and a Mediterranean forest located outside Madrid, Jacobo García-Germán has completed what is Europe’s largest cactus garden. The most unique thing about the project is that instead of pursuing the usual, predictable image of a domed greenhouse or that of organic parametricism, the architect has created an object reflecting the contrast between two different worlds: that of the prefabricated modular rigor of the construction – marked by the elegant, cold aesthetic of an office building – and that of the organic exuberance of the garden. It is a project where the corporate and the picturesque engage in a rather dusturbing way.