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Su ejemplar transformación de la ribera del Manzanares —que realizaron junto al despacho madrileño de Carlos Rubio y Enrique Álvarez-Sala, y con los paisajistas holandeses de West 8, que lidera el carismático Adriaan Geuze— se documenta con planos y esquemas de elegante diseño gráfico, numerosas fotografías y textos explicativos; pero en el volumen brillan por su ausencia los dos protagonistas de la operación: el alcalde Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, un político que se atrevió a promover un proyecto urbano visionario que aunaba infraestructura y paisaje, sutura ciudadana y reequilibrio social; y el ingeniero Manuel Melis, catedrático de Ferrocarriles en la Escuela de Caminos, que con Gallardón como Presidente de la Comunidad de Madrid había ejecutado la extraordinaria ampliación de la red de metro, y que en esta ocasión puso su experiencia en la construcción de túneles y su capacidad organizativa al servicio de una obra de dimensión descomunal y complejidad extrema, al tener que realizarse manteniendo en servicio la autopista M-30 que rodea la ciudad.
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Madrid Río, the Spanish capital’s main urban project, is still a character in search of an author. Francisco Burgos, Ginés Garrido, and Fernando Porras-Isla have edited a fine book, which – full disclosure – I accepted the invitation to preface; but the extensive presentation of data and diagrams cannot replace the story behind this colossal urban renewal, and that remains to be written. Their exemplary transformation of the Manzanares riverbank (designed with the Madrid office of Carlos Rubio and Enrique Álvarez-Sala, and with the Dutch landscapists West 8, led by Adriaan Geuze) is documented with graphically elegant plans and sketches, photographs and texts; but in the volume two of the project’s main actors are conspicuous by their absence: the mayor Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, a politician who dared to back a visionary urban project that merged infrastructure and landscaping, civic suture, and social rebalance; and the engineer Manuel Melis, chair professor at the School of Civil Engineering, who carried out the vast subway extension while Gallardón was president of the region, and this time put his expertise in tunnels and his organizational skills at the service of an endeavor of massive dimensions and extreme complexity, because the M-30 ringroad had to be kept in service the whole time. Their names can only be found in the newspaper cutouts printed in the book, because the texts fail to mention them, and this seems as implausible as ignoring an elephant in a room.
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