Álvarez Diestro always feels the urge to escape from the city centre and seek out the peripheries where he can observe how new construction sites are established, imposing themselves and rivalling the natural landscape. The growth of the city of Madrid is the perfect opportunity to observe this phenomenon.
Weekly, every Friday on his way to Madrid International Airport to fly to Toulouse, the photographer takes advantage of the journey to immortalise the landscapes in the process of transformation, the greatest example being Valdebebas, which rises next to Terminal 4. During take-off Manuel looks out of the window trying to recognise and locate the new neighbourhoods he has just photographed.
"Exploring Madrid’s urban expansion" by Manuel Álvarez Diestro. Photograph by Manuel Alvarez Diestro.
In other journeys and walks, he has documented different parts of the city as the seasons pass, capturing new structures that emerge from the arid ground or, in some cases, coexist with snow-covered fields.
The photographer notes that many of the new constructions he has encountered in Madrid move away from traditional vernacular styles, away from the familiar cubic brick facades, and evolve towards more dynamic approaches, incorporating recesses, asymmetry and diagonal elements. There is a clear departure from the conventional box.
"Exploring Madrid’s urban expansion" by Manuel Álvarez Diestro. Photograph by Manuel Alvarez Diestro.
After photographing the places, Álvarez Diestro spends time editing and organising the series according to the narrative he understands and wants to show us, from areas that are built from scratch to neighbourhoods that become consolidated. What most captures the photographer's attention and often disturbs him is how box-like structures generate a gloomy atmosphere as they settle on the land, barely taking it into account.
The photograph focuses on two main aspects: the relationship between the structures and the surrounding landscapes, and the architectural progression in which the buildings coexist with the cranes, overlapping and intertwining.
