Metropolis Building

This guide to the Metropolis Building in Madrid opens with the six-meter bronze winged-victory statue crowning its dome and traces what stood there before her: Ganymede riding a phoenix, installed in 1911 by the insurance company that built the tower, La Union y el Fenix. It follows the building's 1972 sale and the 1977 commission that brought sculptor Federico Coullaut-Valera to cast a replacement nearly double the earlier figure's weight. Look up at the gilded dome, once covered in tens of thousands of sheets of gold leaf, as you listen.