Development of the lower area of Toledo Street

a) Upper part of old Madrid, with an irregular layout, small plots, modest housing buildings in general, with a character and atmosphere typical of Madrid: Calle de Toledo (in the upper area) and Glorieta de la Puerta de Toledo.

b) Modern urban expansion, with wide and regular layouts, larger plots and completely disorderly construction, with a preference for industrial buildings.

c) Bank of the Manzanares: abandoned with vegetable gardens and shacks, with deficient drainage from an aesthetic point of view and a completely neglected bridge.

We therefore accept the solutions to these problems adopted by the General Commission for Urban Development of Greater Madrid, albeit with slight variations in the layout:

1. Opening of a new street which, starting from General Ricardos, crosses the Manzanares through a new bridge located to the east of the Toledo Bridge, and which will lead to the junction of the Paseo de las Acacias and Paseo de los Olmos, a street which connects with the Toledo road. This street and bridge, which is very wide, are used to divert the road traffic that currently passes over the Toledo Bridge.
2. Creation of a ring road which, situated in the extension of the Paseo de las Yeserías and starting from the Glorieta de las Pirámides, will connect with the banks of the Manzanares at the Paseo de Santa María de la Cabeza, where it meets the Calle de Segovia.
3. Opening of the Gran Vía de San Francisco, which links the current Glorieta de la Puerta de Toledo with the Plaza de San Francisco, a complementary access road to the current one, which is insufficient along the Calle de Toledo (as mentioned above), to make the link with the west and centre of the town. The north penetration is established by Paseo de las Acacias and Ronda de Valencia, to link with the north-south axis (Nuevos Ministerios-Atocha). In our project, the axis of this street is slightly displaced with respect to the one proposed by the Greater Madrid Police Station.
4. Widening of the width of Calle de Toledo in the upper area to 25 m, which is necessary for the current traffic, and even more so for the traffic that will exist when the previous reforms are carried out.
5. Regularisation of the meeting space at Puente de Toledo, Calle del General Ricardos, Calle de Antonio López, etcetera. Madrid, September 1947.

The architects: Luis Rodríguez Hernández, Federico García de Villar and Ricardo Anadón Frutos.