Day 9: The Second Spanish Sky Crapper

And we´re back to Plaza España for the second Spanish Sky Crapper!

the torre de madrid, or la jirafa

Brought to you by the same architechts that designed the Spain building, the Otamendi Machimbarrena brothers (that´s a pretty cool sounding name if you ask me), the Tower of Madrid, or Giraffe, as it´s known by the locals, joined the Plaza de España skyline in 1957. 

You might be thinking it looks kind of ordinary. What´s a regular old sky scraper doing in a lineup of interesting sky-high sights around Madrid? It´s not even that tall! It isn´t that tall, but it was.

At 142 meters, the Jirafa was the tallest concrete building not only in Madrid, not only in Spain, not only in Europe - do you see where I´m going with this? - but in the world! With so many taller, more impressive buildings sprouting up practically overnight, the "pioneers" get forgotten. It may not be the tallest, or the most stunning, or even the ugliest (wait for it, it´s coming), but it´s still definitely worth a second look.