El Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain It is housed in an extremely unique headquarters. A building that does not leave you indifferent, known colloquially as the Crown of Thorns, at number 4 Pintor El Greco Street in the University City. Almost 50 years have passed since its creation, yet it continues to arouse the interest of many architects and remains a blatantly modern work. The history of the building contributes to giving it an aura of mystery. It changed its use more than 10 times and suffered abandonment for 16 years, to finally open its doors as a restoration center, the use for which it had been originally designed, and in the same location in which its authors placed it in a project which was presented and won the 1961 Spanish National Architecture Prize competition, which turned out to be purely theoretical.

That year, the architects Fernando Higueras y Rafael Moneo They present a preliminary project for the "Artistic Restoration Center." They win the contest but their work seems unrealizable. In 1965, Fernando Higueras and Antonio Miró They modified the project, maintaining the circular scheme of the award-winning preliminary project, but reducing the size and through a more regular modulation of the structure they managed to make the construction, which began in 1967, viable.

His visit reminds us of an extraterrestrial ship from science fiction movies. It is a surprising container, it seems armored, bristling, which nevertheless protects a luminous interior, where the edges become blunt, rounded and with ivies that climb through the light wells as you can see in the photos.

But its content is also surprising: wounded, damaged art waiting to be restored; books, paintings, tapestries, sculptures, reliquaries, archaeological pieces, a world of objects that preserve history like reliquaries.
Fernando Higueras left his mark, a mark that is not indifferent, a total artist, who was interested in everything.

Without a doubt one of the most curious buildings in Madrid.

A abrazo.