• The Supreme Court and Fundación Iberdrola España have inaugurated the exterior ornamental lighting of the Plaza Villa de París and Marqués de la Ensenada gates of this emblematic Madrid building at an institutional event held this afternoon.
  • Fundación Iberdrola has designed and executed the lighting project using the most advanced LED technology, which seeks to improve the building’s energy efficiency.

Madrid. Iberdrola, through its Foundation in Spain, today inaugurated the exterior ornamental lighting of the main façades of the Supreme Court Palace in Madrid. The event was attended by the President of the Supreme Court and the General Council of the Judiciary, Carlos Lesmes, the Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, and the President of Fundación Iberdrola España, Fernando García.

With this innovative lighting project, the Iberdrola Foundation has highlighted and highlighted the central bodies of each of the facades of the Supreme Court, placing them as a reference axis in each of the environments: Plaza Villa de París and Calle Marqués de la Ensenada, leaving the rest of the building’s walls unlit. This solution seeks to minimise the invasion of light from the building into the rest of the urban environment.

The design has sought to obtain a “natural lighting” effect, which has been achieved by combining uniform vertical lighting starting from the ground, but limiting its height, thus leaving the lower face of the cornices in shadow; in this way, horizontal strips of descending shadow are generated, reminiscent of those produced by sunlight.

Power-adjustable spotlights have been used to achieve uniform lighting with a neutral white colour temperature. More than 70 floodlights and more than 130 metres of flexible LED strips have been installed, with a total power of only 4.3 KW, which guarantees its sustainability over time.

The project, which required more than 180,000 euros, is part of one of the main areas of activity of the Iberdrola Spain Foundation: cultural development and conservation of historical and artistic heritage.

About the Supreme Court Palace in Madrid

The complex was created on the initiative of Queen Bárbara de Braganza to install the nuns of the Visitation order in Spain, with the intention that, in addition to the convent, a school for noble girls would be established. The institution remained in this location until 1870, when the nuns were expelled and the convent was converted into the Palace of Justice. The building suffered two serious fires, the worst of them in 1915, which barely affected the church, but almost completely destroyed the Palace. In 1926, the reconstruction project began, with the aim of building a real courthouse with a national character, in line with those existing in the rest of Europe.

Iberdrola, with the promotion of art and culture

One of Iberdrola’s main areas of action, through its Foundation in Spain, focuses on the care, conservation and enhancement of historical and artistic wealth. The main objective of the Lighting Programme is to develop interventions in unique buildings to install or improve their interior and/or exterior ornamental lighting systems in order to contribute to the enhancement of heritage.

Since 2011, the volume of investment allocated to the Lighting Programme has amounted to more than 3 million euros and has led to the improvement of more than 40 monuments in Spain, including the historic Roman Bridge of Alcántara, in Cáceres; the façade of the Congress of Deputies, in Madrid; the Cathedral of Ávila, or the interior of the New Cathedral of Salamanca.