Puente Enrique de la Mata Gorostizaga

The Puente Enrique de la Mata Gorostizaga leaps over the Paseo de la Castellana just where the Glorieta de Rubén Darío opens up. It was built with a then-untried recipe: two box girders of self-weathering Corten steel over a deck of white concrete. Corten is the steel that rusts on purpose, forming a reddish crust that protects it. Here it debuted on a grand scale, because it was the first time Spain seriously applied both Corten steel and composite structure in a public work. It runs 230 metres long, with a central span that flies 38 metres without supports. And below is where the most surprising thing happens. Since 1972 the space under the deck has held Madrid’s Museum of Public Art, an open-air collection of abstract sculpture driven by Fernández Ordóñez, Martínez Calzón and the artist Eusebio Sempere. Anyone crossing above may not suspect they are treading on the roof of a sculpture gallery. The name honours Enrique de la Mata Gorostizaga, minister of Trade Union Relations in Suárez’s first government, who pushed the dismantling of the single state union and the legalisation of democratic trade unions. Despite that long official name, Madrileños rarely use it: for most it remains the Puente de Juan Bravo or the Puente de Eduardo Dato, depending on which street you arrive by.