Archivo Martín Domínguez. Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, Madrid (Martín Domínguez Archive. Zarzuela Racetrack, Madrid)

Martín Domínguez was part of the so-called Generation of ’25, comprising young architects who graduated from the Madrid School and who advocated a modern way of creating architecture, moving away from the tradition inherited from the previous century.  Domínguez worked with Eduardo Torroja and Carlos Arniches on the project for the new racecourse in Madrid. The confluence of two architects and an engineer gave form to an architectural complex which, employing traditional elements such as Arabic tiles and whitewashed walls, sought a modern formulation. The defining feature of the ensemble would be a continuous rhythm elicited by the arches; a tempo also conveyed on the roofs to the stands. With the cadence this succession of curves produced, all three sought to reference the horse’s gallop, the raison d’être of the entire project, ultimately.
Martín Domínguez’s subsequent exile prompted the loss of his professional archive containing the original plans for the racecourse. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, drawing both from his memory and existing photographs, he sketched the plan which is conserved in the Museo today and which enabled the architect to re-acquaint himself with the building he would never see finished.

Francisco Rojas Serrano