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^{Edificio Banco de España series (2000-2001). Photographs by: Javier Campano}

Erected at the height of the nineteenth-century architectural boom, few buildings in Madrid have evolved as successfully and with such consistency as the Banco de España's head offices in its iconic setting on the Plaza de Cibeles. The design was approved at the end of 1883 and the first phase of building work was completed in 1891. The chief architect was Eduardo de Adaro, assisted by Severiano Sainz de la Lastra and, following the latter's death, by José María de Aguilar y Vela.

Overcoming many construction difficulties, they managed to create what is unquestionably one of the most powerful examples of Spanish architecture of the time. As Pedro Navascués Palacio writes, within the monumental edifice, the architects managed to reconcile the industrial and representative functions of the bank with a great sense of naturalness and fluidity. This synthesis is visible not only in the structure, but also in the ornamentation, and was one of the grounds for the building's listing as a Site of Cultural Interest in 1999, in the historical monument category.

Since it was first erected, the building has undergone a complex evolution. Most recently, in 2006 (coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Banco de España under its current name), architect Rafael Moneo, winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize, closed the block with a new free-standing corner building, designed to house meeting rooms and an auditorium. The meticulous intervention respects the existing structure, while at the same time enhancing the entire complex.

In all, four separate construction phases can be identified, with gaps of thirty-six, thirty-eight and twenty-eight years between them.

The first extension, approved in 1927, was designed by José Yarnoz Larrosa who built the façade on Calle Alcalá in keeping with the historicist idiom of the original design. Inside, his intervention was more ground-breaking; he replaced the Cash Hall with the great art deco Trading Hall, which stands above the famous Gold Chamber. The second extension, begun in the mid-1960s, was the work of Javier Yarnoz Orcoyen, son of the architect in charge of the earlier alterations, and closed off the building on Calle Madrazo and Calle Marqués de Cubas.

The successive interventions have not deprived the building it of its great uniformity of style, while still offering fine examples of the contemporary architectural culture of each period. As a result, the Banco de España’s head office, begun in the late Romantic age and completed in the democratic period, remains one of the most iconic public buildings in Madrid.

The ornamentation is particularly striking. Outside, the sculptural and relief features that decorate the façades of the original building sit harmoniously alongside those of later extensions. In the interior, there are a number of outstanding highlights from the original design, including the Grand Staircase in Carrara marble; the Cash Hall or main banking hall, now the Library, whose cast iron structure, like most of the metal components used, was made in the Mieres Factory; and the set of symbolist stained glass windows, made by the House of Mayer in Munich. Also notable, from Yarnoz Larrosa's design, is the new Trading Hall, with its attractive art deco features such as the upper stained glass window and the clock presiding over the courtyard.

The building has been the subject of a number of essays by experienced architectural photographers Javier Campano, Candida Höfer and Jorge Ribalta. Campano's series Edificio del Banco de España (2000-2001) comprises over 150 photographs, some of which have since become iconic images of the building. Also dating from 2000 is a project by German photographer Candida Höfer, one of the leading figures in the Düsseldorf School. In her exploration of what has been called the "architecture of absence", Höfer depicts a number of areas inside the building, including the former historical archive and the lobby leading to the vault elevators. The most recent project, by Barcelona photographer Jorge Ribalta, is a series entitled Restauración, which documents the work of restoring and cleaning the building in 2017 and 2018. The series is also a multifaceted exercise in metalinguistic reflection on the photographic device itself, the genesis and history of this architectural space and the relationship between money and photography.