Spanish National Observatory
Encyclopedia
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
area.
The historic building in the Parque del Buen Retiro
Parque del Buen Retiro
The Buen Retiro Park is the largest park of the city of Madrid, Spain...
was built in 1790 as the Royal Observatory. It took over the purely astronomical work of the naval observatory, the Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada, in the south of the country.
The Royal Observatory was designed by Juan de Villanueva
Juan de Villanueva
Juan de Villanueva was a Spanish architect. Alongside Ventura Rodríguez, Villanueva is the best known architect of Spanish Neoclassicism....
and represents one of the highlights of Spanish neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
. Its domed lantern was conceived as a classical circular temple. It houses historic scientific equipment and a library, which can be visited by prior arrangement.