The ground floor arrangement in the House of Sweden

Around 1950, the Swedish community residing in Madrid commissioned the Spanish architect Mariano Garrigues to build the House of Sweden. According to its needs program, the building was to house a hotel, on its upper floors; some commercial offices, in the intermediate ones, and the Scandinavian Center and other complementary services, in the lower ones. According to its representative aspects, the building should establish itself as a benchmark of Scandinavian culture, providing a genuinely Nordic atmosphere inside. The particular focus of this study is the ground floor: a complex place becoming not only as a constructive support for the building, but also from a functional and symbolic point of view; where the urban movements and the upper floors’ uses are linking, and where, in addition to the multiple functions that have a place there, their entrances have been settled using the slope of the land. The aim of this article is to present three key arguments as the main orders that play a significant role in the game board: a wide span structure made of laminated steel (grid), a dynamic understanding of space (paths), and an active presence of furniture (objects), as a vital mediator between construction and people.