The Crystal Palace of the “Retiro” Park, is one of the most beautiful structures that can be found in Madrid. On the one hand, it combines delicacy and romanticism, and on the other, it achieves a union of innovative materials within a monumental space giving it an imposing attitude.
The architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, built the Crystal Palace in five months, in 1887. It was designed as a greenhouse-stove to house the sample of exotic plants brought for the Flora Exhibition of the Philippine Islands, at that time a Spanish colony .
The Crystal Palace is one of the best examples of the so-called iron architecture in Madrid, being the first time that in Spain the iron and glass was used in a non-industrial building.
In fact, it was the industrial revolution that drove many changes in the use of building materials, tempering the functionality needs of a new society, industrial and capitalist. Materials such as steel, iron, rolled steel, reinforced concrete and glass, made their appearance at the end of the 19th century.