Line 8 of Madrid’s Metro

Organized every two years since 1985 by the San Benito de Alcántara Foundation, the prize bears the name of the Roman bridge that graces this town in Extremadura, and is bestowed on public works carried out in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. In its seventh edition the award acknowledged the prolongation of the line 8 of Madrid’s subway. Connecting the Juan Carlos I trade fair grounds to Barajas Airport, the operation was designed by the engineers Manuel Arnáiz, Jesús Trabada, and José Laorden with the architect Juan Pablo Alonso. It is an enormous work whose 5,347 meters of tunnel space serves to unify a huge part of Madrid’s eastern section, receiving and facilitating the orientation of commuters with light, partly glazed galleries. Honored as well with the Construmat award, which is given by the so-named fair that is held bienially in Barcelona, this project won over the reconstruction of Barcelona’s Liceo opera house, by the late Ignasi de Solá-Morales, and Seville’s new Olympic stadium, by Cruz & Ortiz. A stone bank in Cayo Santa María, Cuba, obtained the award’s Latin American mention.