The dark side of the city. Madrid Underground by Manuel Álvarez Diestro and Karlos Gil

The architectural photographer Manuel Álvarez Diestro and the visual artist Karlos Gil present Madrid Underground, a photographic series where they have captured the dark world of Madrid's underground, showing the most sinister aspect of the city, more analogous to science fiction than to real reality.

This project is a journey through time in the underground, where the past and the future meet. Álvarez Diestro focused on capturing the spatial and architectural aspects, given by his experience in this sector, while Karlos Gil was in charge of conceptualizing the darkness of that world, giving life to these spaces.

The authors saw the opportunity to reveal the most unknown part of Madrid, offering a fascinating story, but completely different from the image we have of the city's exterior, with its monuments, its public spaces and its sky.

On the other hand, they also aim to capture the architectural aspects of the most hidden part of Madrid. The various points of the photographic sequence approach spaces with very different atmospheres, such as: space shuttles, timeless sanctuaries, infinite corridors and spaces with a life of their own.

Madrid Underground by Manuel Álvarez Diestro and Karlos Gil.

Among the Madrid Underground scenarios are: the hydraulic installations of the Canal de Isabel II and the Storm Tunnel, a water tank that will only be used in the event of an environmental catastrophe; the section of the M30 highway buried as it passes through the southeast area of the city, without any use; and, the disused metro tracks of the Money Tunnel, built in the 19th century to carry cash from the Bank of Spain to a secret warehouse on Goya Street.

According to the authors, the bowels of the M30 were one of the most terrifying places they have visited, which they accessed after descending 90 meters of stairs. Álvarez Diestro explains that he has traveled to various parts of the world but that the most powerful and terrifying story has been developed in the city where he resides, Madrid.

Madrid Underground by Manuel Álvarez Diestro and Karlos Gil.

In addition to facing really sinister and dangerous spaces, with sulfuric acid emissions, areas with asbestos and practically inaccessible areas, it is also a challenge on a professional level, since Manuel Álvarez Diestro usually faces other types of scenarios, generally open spaces in those that capture the relationship between architecture and the natural passage of the environment that surrounds it.

In this adventure, they had the support of a group of students from the TAI University School of Arts in Madrid, who have collected this experience in a video called "Origin," presented by Karlos Gil in the exhibition "Declive" at the CA2M in Madrid.

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Karlos Gil

Karlos Gil. (Talavera, 1984) He studied at the School of Visuals Arts in New York and the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon and Madrid, where he obtained a doctorate in 2016.

His work is centered explores ideas of nature and its transformation over deep geological to explore the “otherness” of our surrounding world. His practice examines the complex and often contradictory ways in which human beings relate with the natural world, layering his artworks with encrypted stories from science fiction, occultism, underground culture, nihilism, mythology and industrial and biological evolution. His latest projects are conceived as scenarios that generate new possibilities of co-dependence between events and the objects they produce, always reflecting on a manifest impression of the “fall of time”, decadence, ruin or obsolescence of historical time.

He has had several international exhibitions in spaces like Centre Pompidou, Paris; HKW, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; NTU CCA, Singapore, Gasworks, London; Fondazione Baruchello, Rome; CRAC-Montbeliard; Galería Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo; MARCO, Vigo; CA2M, Madrid.

Manuel Álvarez Diestro

Manuel Álvarez Diestro. Born in Santander in 1972, he is a designer by vocation, although his professional life turned around to a marketing and communications company. He loves the creativity, innovation and the "Branding" of the big brands, which closely follows and is learning every day.

His passion rides between art and architecture and its way of expression is photography. He explores the city with his camera looking at urban landscapes to revitalize, through the image, the appreciation of cities, in their various developments. We can see these images in his latest works "New Cairo", "Pyramids," "Parabolic Facades", "Playgrounds of the World", "Souvenirs de Beyrouth", "Dystopic Songdo" and "Amphitheaters".