Windsor Tower (Madrid)

The Windsor Tower (Torre Windsor) was an office building in the financial center of Madrid, Spain. Built in 1979, it was 106 m high and had 32 floors of which 29 were above ground level and 3 below, thus ranking it as the eighth tallest building in Madrid (and 23rd in Spain). The building was gutted by a huge fire on 12 February 2005, and partially collapsed; it has since been demolished.

Characteristics of the building
The building, located at Calle Raimundo Fernández Villaverde 65, had a total area of 20000 m2 and was one of the first modern towers in Madrid. The tower was designed in 1974 by a team of six important Spanish architects and was constructed between 1975 and 1979.

Its distinctive appearance was due to its elemental geometry, lacking composite elements. Its façade was completely covered by reflective glass-like panels that mirrored the sky of Madrid, diminishing its visual impact. The structure was divided into two halves by a mechanical floor without windows. It was a very solid building, with a central core of reinforced concrete that resisted the high temperatures of the fire without collapsing. The building did not have a fire sprinkler system. Sprinklers were being retrofitted, but they were not yet operable when the building was destroyed by fire.

Fire
Around midnight, on Saturday, 12 February 2005, a fire was detected on the 21st floor of the building. The fire spread quickly throughout the entire building, leading to the collapse of the outermost, steel parts of the upper floors. It took firefighters about 24 hours to extinguish the fire. In the aftermath, seven firefighters were injured, but nobody was killed during the disaster. However, the building was a total loss, which was arguably the worst in Madrid's history. The fire was blamed on an electrical fault.

The city council of Madrid covered the cost of demolishing the remains of the building, thought to be some EUR 22 million (USD $32.5 million). Demolition was completed in August 2005, and a 23-story replacement called Torre Titania was built from 2007 to 2011.