Puerto y Martín Gives Madrid’s “Sports Palace” a Concession Stand Update
Since 1960, athletics fans and concertgoers have congregated in Madrid’s “Sports Palace,” which was rebuilt in 2005 after a fire and renamed the WiZink Center in 2016. The venue was designed with a rational, ring-shaped circulation scheme that has remained functional but, when it came to concession stands, was in need of a little refreshment.
“It was pretty challenging to face a small intervention within a container that has a massive scale,” explains Puerto y Martín founder Pinar Martín Martín. The scale was indeed huge, with a total area of more than 145,300 square feet within which the Mahou beer concessions could easily get lost. To make them stand out, she says, “we looked into the traditional bars of Madrid, where drinking beer is almost a tradition.”
From this inspiration, the studio adopted a material palette of ceramic tiles in graphic black and white trimmed in red. “Ceramic, marble, and wood in balanced combinations usually get displayed toward the street through large metal-framed windows that invite people in,” Martín says. Or in this case, encourage thirsty spectators to score a cold one or two.
Project Team: Jose Martín Puerto, Pinar Martín Martín (founders), Nicolás Martín Martín.
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