A Villaverde library is among the best of national architecture. The recently inaugurated ‘Mil Soles’, located in the Butarque neighborhood, has been selected as one of the 27 finalists in the Architecture 2025 Awards, one of the country’s most prestigious competitions in the field of public and private building.
Organized by the Consejo Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España (CSCAE) and with the official sponsorship of COMPAC®, these awards recognize works that not only stand out for their design or technique, but also for their social, environmental and urban impact. And the fact that a public building in Villaverde is a finalist, among more than 450 nominations received from all over Spain, is no small thing – or as the politician would say: it’s a big deal.
What are the Architecture 2025 Awards
The Architecture 2025 Awards value projects built in Spain that represent some of the so-called “universal values of architecture“: from innovation and sustainability to the ability to generate community, improve the environment or reformulate the urban. Works designed to last, to be used and to transform.
In this edition, the jury has reduced the 456 initial proposals to a list of 27 finalists, from which the winners will be announced on July 3. Among them are housing, cultural centers, renovations, public facilities and, in this case, a library that has managed to make architecture a tool for cohesion in one of the most underprivileged districts of Madrid.
This is ‘Mil Soles’, the library that represents Villaverde
Designed by architect Miguel Ángel Díaz Camacho and the MADC & Partners studio, the ‘Mil Soles’ library is, above all, a direct response to a historical lack in the Butarque neighborhood: there was no public library. Now there is.
The building stands out for its luminous architecture, designed for comfort, which uses elements such as skylights, vertical louvers and lattices to tame the sunlight. The name is no coincidence: everything in the project revolves around the idea of light as a generator of space, atmosphere and coexistence.
Two other projects from Madrid competing among the finalists
Along with the library, two other Madrid projects have made it onto the list of finalists. On the one hand, the new Pozo del Tío Raimundo cleaning canteen, an emphatic, functional and minimalist structure that redefines the limits between the industrial and the public. On the other, the fluvial restoration of the Manzanares River, an ambitious ecological and urban regeneration project that aims to recover the social and environmental value of the riverbed as it passes through the city.