24 Hours in Madrid with Gon Architects

"When I started my doctoral research in 2016," Gonzalo Pardo, the founder of gon architects, tells me, "I wanted to know how we, in developed countries, had arrived at an open-plan kitchen."

Gonzalo was already working on small residential projects. "In a small home, you have to erase, erase, erase, make fast decisions. You have to articulate a house in a very small space. What you take out is more important than what you put in." He was looking at MasterChef and wondering how cooking had become so important. "For example, in Ancient Rome there was no kitchen – just a public surface in the street called tabernae, from which people sold food. In Renaissance villas, the kitchen was in the basement. Then it starts migrating to the centre of the house."

Gonzalo became obsessed with charting how cultures have changed with time, pulling the home along. His award-winning PhD thesis starts in the Paleolithic with the discovery of the fire, and ends with the air-fryer. "Today, the kitchen is often a large, central room, but it's increasingly disconnected from cooking. It has become a room for socialising, enjoying life." As a non-cook, he finds this fascinating: he could easily live in a kitchenless house.

"The bathroom, on the other hand, goes the opposite way: to the periphery." He shows me image after image of large, communal baths that were ubiquitous in medieval cities. Strangers bathed, ate and enjoyed music together. "It all ended with the Black Death. Suddenly, the authorities said that air and water spread diseases – particularly water, because it opened pores. For the next 200 years, everyone covered up their whole body." Bathrooms disappeared – there isn't, for example, a single one in Versailles – reduced to a small portable chamber pot. It is only now, he thinks, that the bathroom is becoming a social space again, as we sit on our toilets scrolling on social media.

It is worth understanding, he says, that architects were always the least important people at the table – the home was shaped by engineers, by politics, by social trends, such as the emancipation of women. "When we understand this cultural history, we can be more open-minded in our designs."

Gonzalo's designs are nothing if not open-minded – and the bathroom, I sense, is his true passion. Water is often the protagonist of his designs:

the central glass shower that illuminates Casa Flix (2024) like a lantern; the small pool under a large skylight that adjoins the living room in his own G House (2018); the exquisite open bathroom that spills into the corridor of Sequencehouse (2020) and becomes a walkable, sociable space. Such expansive spaces for enjoyment and self-care are unusual in small homes, which often have to be sternly functional – and it is this playful, hedonistic spirit that attracts clients to him. For his new project, a client asked for a bathroom filled with greenery. She wants, he said, "to bathe in a jungle", like in Henri Rousseau's 1910 oil painting 'The Dream'.

Compared to other European capitals, or even Barcelona, Madrid is a uniquely forgettable city. It looks a bit like Paris, but with all the landmarks taken out: wide boulevards, tall buildings, no orientation points. It is the second-biggest city in the EU, its fourth largest urban economy – but if we played charades, or Pictionary, what would you draw if you had to draw me Madrid?

Some of it is due to history. In 1561, King Philip II got tired of touring his disjointed Spanish possessions on horseback – itinerant courts were by then seen as an outdated, medieval practice. Philip fancied himself a modern leader, with an interest in modern urbanism, which in late Renaissance meant public plazas, a grid of wide streets, geometry, symmetry. So he chose a provincial town, smack-bang in the geographical centre of Spain, and built there an administrative centre of his empire. Madrid, in other words, was the Canberra¹ of its time.

I feel this acutely while I'm circling a nondescript building in a nondescript neighbourhood, looking for gon architects' office. There seems to be no care given to the public spaces, nor to the image they project. Gon is a busy office, currently working across Spain, and increasingly Europe, on some 20 projects, ranging from cabinet handles to apartment buildings. I am expecting a flashy office in a hip neighbourhood. Instead, I am in a residential street with a primary school at one end. The only commercial signage is for a ground-floor photocopy shop. Maria Camila Martinez (also known as Maclas), gon's communications coordinator, has to come down to find me.

"It's true, we don't have big monuments," Gonzalo tells me. "Madrid isn't special in that way. But it's very special in other ways. You will see."

"Madrid is a mess," agrees Carol Pierina Linares, who has been something of Gonzalo's right hand for the past 6-7 years. "In Barcelona, the city hires people who make sure that the level of public architecture is very fine. In Madrid, we're missing public policies that really care about architecture."

The contrast between the bland city outside, and the inventive, forward-thinking realm I have just entered, couldn't be starker. Gon's team has largely come through the interdisciplinary, open-minded Master of Architectural Communication at Madrid's polytechnic (MACA), where Gonzalo, then Carol, have taught. Their thinking is broad, with references ranging from Georges Perec's wordplay novels and the mid-century projects of Ray and Charles Eames, to sociological studies. ("I think all of us could be in another profession if we wanted to," Carol muses.) And there is a whimsy and playfulness that infuses their universe. Casa Flix was inspired by Wes Anderson movies. They have made an apartment entirely decked out in a particular shade of mint green used by Prada (Menta, 2021). They have turned a shopfront into a pull-out Latin American street food cart in a bright lime colour (Limeñita, 2022). And in their office, a large model of their latest apartment building is being attacked by a dinosaur figurine.

It's a young and international office: apart from Carol and María (Maclas), there is María (Coti) and Maria (the Greek), all sitting around one big desk. Carol and Coti are Venezuelan, Maclas from Colombia. The atmosphere is warm and relaxed. The company Slack is a constant stream of memes. Banter and laughter fill the air, punctured by a loud hourly chirp.

"This is our bird clock!" says Gonzalo. "It's a different bird sound every hour, and you have to guess the bird." It's their office game, he adds. Carol pipes in: "There is one bird that sounds like a pig!"

Gonzalo graduated in 2008, straight into the global financial crisis, which hit Spain particularly hard. The construction sector collapsed, leaving some 4 million vacant homes and a youth unemployment rate of 55 per cent. "The generation before us graduated and expected to immediately build buildings," he says. "We all had to look for other types of work." He was among the lucky ones, winning a major public competition straight out of university. Still, he was part of a generation that branched out into research, teaching and curation – and in the process, developed a more politically and environmentally aware approach to architecture.

We are eating lunch at Run Run Run, a restaurant with its own greenhouse, showers and lockers for the local running club, a building-manifesto to local food production, community and sustainability. It was designed by Andres Jaque, another prominent representative of the 'crisis generation'. Looking outside from its mayhem of colours, textures, plants and customers, the drab street is another universe. The generational gap is palpable.

Maclas is organising me a ticket for an awards gala that evening. gon has been nominated for Casavera (2024), a shopfront in Valencia refurbished into an accessible family home for Elies, wheelchair-bound entrepreneur and activist, his artist wife Aurora, and their daughter Vera.

"In housing competitions, Madrid still talks about apartments 'for a married couple'," Carol tells me, visibly miffed. "Come on! Not only married people need housing!" They have completed accessible homes, homes for a single mum, for a single woman, for co-living, she says. "There are different ways of living. We try to enable them through architecture – that's where we find the richness of life."

Gonzalo tells me they start every project by interviewing the client in depth about how they live: how they cook, how they have sex, whether they prefer a bath or a shower…
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"Sorry, wait," I interrupt. "You ask them how they have sex?"
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"Well, yes," Gonzalo nods. "It's really important!

And they go: 'Oh, uh, do we have to answer?' Yes, you have to answer." There is something genuine and charming in Gonzalo's explanation, and by now we're all roaring with laughter. "But," he continues, "it's really interesting what we discover. Many of them have been living their lives as their father and mother have told them. They discover, for example, that, if they cook a lot, they can have a big kitchen in the middle of the house. 'Can I really have this?' Of course you can!

"For example, 'I'd love to have a bath in the jungle' – that's the beginning of the story of this person's home."

Carol nods: "Everything starts with the story of the client, and ends with the story of their house."

"And every aesthetic choice is the consequence of the narrative," Maclas pipes in.

"In the end," says Gonzalo, "the name 'gon' could stand for 'great office of narratives'. A good work of architecture is like a good book."

Take Casavera. "It's a story about the Mediterranean", he says, about the salt-resistant materials of the area and the historical trading neighbourhoods of Valencia, as well as about Elies and Aurora. "If I made a house for myself there, it would be very different. But it's a house for them – I think, one of our best projects."

Casavera started off as a long and narrow ground-floor space with a small back patio. The new design has wide passageways, an accessible bathroom, and a long skinny swimming pool for Elies. Though accessibility was key to its design, the house comes across as an easy, modern coastal home for a family with a small child.

"And the four cats!" Maclas adds.

"They were the bosses," Carol shakes her head.

Gonzalo nods. "Every meeting was like: 'So, what have you thought for Lupito?' 'Lupito?' 'My cat. How is he going to go from the kitchen to the bathroom?'"

"In the end, we designed two circulation plans: one for the humans and one for the cats," Carol remembers. "With their own small doors, climbing structures and ways to get across furniture."

Later that night, Maclas and I traverse a confusing metro station and a totally nondescript plaza to get to our gala. We watch Gonzalo collect the award – no surprises there, Casavera is brilliant – and I wonder how many people know that the actual client was Lupito.

The next morning, Gonzalo, Maria (the Greek) and I dash through Madrid's historical centre on a tour of half a dozen gon homes. Some of the owners are there to greet us, others have left the key to Gonzalo – or in a nearby bar, allowing us to also grab cheap, delicious treats. On this morning, Madrid seems like a friendly village. Everyone we meet is smiling, joking – lovely. I remember what Maclas said to me: "All of Gonzalo's clients become his friends." Gonzalo brings a little present to Cecilia, who lets us into her brilliant attic apartment, Casa Gialla (2023). The entire building was renovated 30 years ago in chalet style – dark wood, exposed beams – but Cecilia's apartment is awash in light, with a warm yellow wall that hides clutter away in built-in cupboards.

"In medieval times, there were no separate rooms, just one room with a big cupboard," Gonzalo tells us. "Depending on the time of day, residents would bring out stuff for cooking, for sleeping… It was like a magic box, used to organise the space."

Cecilia gushes about her outdoor bath and shower. "From March until November, I only have showers outside! But even in winter, with a bit of chill, the hot water is amazing." She got her inspiration from Gonzalo's own apartment. "It has the same feeling, of taking the time to enjoy the place where you live."

I start to see a pattern. The challenge in Madrid is not size; some apartments are fairly spacious. But all began as poorly designed, leftover spaces that made everyday life uncomfortable. Some were all corridor, others very dark. The last one, Maison Latomet (2025), started off as a narrow, poorly built duplex. "The feng shui was terrible," says Philippe, the owner. "And it was built with no insulation at all. I had been freezing here for five years."

Gonzalo agrees. "It was not an easy flat."

It is an easy flat now – it has the vibe of a large, relaxed country house, of the kind where you can invite a bunch of friends, and they will all find places to lounge without getting in each other's way. Philippe had wanted to turn his pocket home into a place to host friends and family; miraculously, gon architects has made that possible. The staircase doubles up as a shelf and seating, one wall fully opens to the large terrace, and the diagonal view of the garden extends to the open space upstairs. In the shower, a tiny window offers an exhilarating view over the rooftops. It's details like these that give Gonzalo's apartments such a sense of delight. "We always try to convince clients to do the things we know they'll like," he shrugs, modestly.

"The narrative of this house is exterior," says Gonzalo later, while we're drinking French wine and enjoying Madrid's warm winter sun. "This house wants to be an exterior house."

"It's a very convivial house," Philippe nods. "Everyone finds their own favourite place to sit. But space is also about the nice moments you have together with dear people. It was important to me that you could forget the house, and just enjoy life."

Our last stop is Gonzalo's own home, G House, which adjoins Philippe's. "Two years ago, I was going to sleep when I heard a loud party. I went out really angry, and knocked on his door: 'The music!'" Gonzalo mimics a disgruntled late-night frown. The next day, he found a bottle of Champagne at his door. "I went over and said, 'No no, let's drink it together.'" They began having dinners.

"One night, after a few glasses of wine, I said: 'Philippe, I have to tell you one truth: your home is terrible.' He said: 'What?! Why would you say that?' 'Because it's terrible.' 'What should I do?' 'Renovate it.' 'Who can do it?' I said: 'Me.'"

Is this how you get your clients?, I ask. Gonzalo nods. "Clients appreciate clarity."

Minutes later, we climb the blue staircase to Gonzalo's home. He calls it 'the most livable house' and it's hard not to agree. It is a fully open-plan attic apartment with big windows, two terraces, a green wall, and a bath in the living room. There is a hammock in front of the TV. Gonzalo brings a huge bean bag for me to curl into, in front of the fireplace.

G House breaks all the rules for how a house should be, yet every person I spoke to was inspired by it, its irreverence and playfulness, to be braver in designing a home that really makes them happy: in how they cook, how they bathe, and yes, how they have sex. What a great way to be an architect, I think to myself.

In the end, Gonzalo's designs achieve something rare and remarkable: they take difficult spaces, and make them seem both larger and more full of life.

I remember the 1944 drawing by Charles Eames, 'What is a House?', that portrayed the home as a sum of everyday functions: film-viewing, kite-flying, card-playing, listening to records, shaking cocktails, lounging on comfy furniture. It's that same playful spirit that animates these delightful homes.

Soon I will have to return home. Maria will lead me back to Plaza de España, where I passed the day before, and I will have literally no recollection of having ever been there. The souvenir shop at Madrid airport will sell Star Wars merch and Pringles. Yet Gonzalo is right, I have seen what makes Madrid special – uncovered its secret charms. It's not the monuments that make a city. It's the people who invite you into their homes, offering conviviality, laughter and friendship. It seems this city is not so forgettable after all.

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¹ Australia’s capital city, like Madrid, was purpose-built as an administrative centre and let’s just say evidence indicates this is not the kind of beginning that ends in an immediately charming and characterful city. In Bill Bryson’s book Down Under (2000) he proposed the following peppy slogan for the city: “Canberra: Why Wait for Death?”.