BIG's Macondo Park Opens in Madrid for Shakira Residency
BIG, Komodo and Vampire built Macondo Park — 185,000 square meters of pavilions, plazas and 500-plus trees — in 10 days for Shakira's Madrid residency. It all comes down after October 11.
- Section
- Architecture
- Author
- By Elena Vasquez
- Filed
- Length
- 2 min read
Key takeaways
- Macondo Park spans 185,000 square meters at the Iberdrola Music venue in Villaverde, Madrid, designed by BIG with Komodo and Vampire.
- The temporary structures were assembled in approximately 10 days using lightweight fabric, modular scaffolding, and reusable components.
- After Shakira's 12-show residency ends October 11, all structures will be dismantled and the more than 500 trees returned to local nurseries.
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), working with Komodo and Vampire, assembled a 185,000-square-meter temporary cultural landscape in roughly 10 days. Macondo Park opened at the Iberdrola Music venue in Villaverde, Madrid, following the opening weekend of Shakira's 12-show residency, which runs through October 11.
The park surrounds the concert venue, also designed by BIG, and takes its name and conceptual framework from the fictional town in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. A central plaza anchors the site, with twelve thematic pavilions distributed around it. Color-coded routes connect the different areas.
The program spans music, dance, art, gastronomy, literature, cinema, and fashion, extending the use of the concert grounds beyond the performances themselves. Daily cultural programming will run alongside the concerts for the duration of the residency.
More than 500 tropical and Mediterranean trees are distributed throughout the site, creating shaded areas and gathering spaces along the routes and around the pavilions.
Built for Dismantling
The temporary structures rely on lightweight fabric, modular scaffolding systems, and reusable components — construction elements commonly used for large-scale events. A shared structural system underpins the whole park, with distinct configurations and fabric treatments differentiating the individual pavilions.
From the outset, the project was designed around its eventual removal. After the final concert on October 11, the temporary buildings and landscape elements will be taken apart, with structural components and materials intended for reuse or repurposing elsewhere.
The trees will also leave the venue. They return to local nurseries after the event, a move the design team frames as an attempt to extend the temporary landscape strategy beyond the residency's short run.
The project sits at the intersection of two ongoing trends: pop stars commissioning dedicated architectural infrastructure for touring, and event architecture designed for disassembly rather than demolition. BIG's Madrid venue for Shakira's world tour belongs to the first category; Macondo Park's scaffold-and-fabric kit of parts, built in days and destined for reuse, belongs to the second.
BIG's Expanding Cultural Portfolio
The Copenhagen- and New York-based studio has a cluster of cultural projects in motion. The EVE Music Hall in Čepin, Croatia — a 10,000-square-meter venue for concerts, conferences, and exhibitions — is nearing completion.
In Nashville, BIG has revealed the design for the new Tennessee Performing Arts Center, developed with William Rawn Associates and HASTINGS Architecture, with construction expected to begin in 2027.
In China, the Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by BIG with ARTS Group, VIA.inc, and SHUISHI, has officially opened to the public on the shores of Jinji Lake.
Macondo Park's future is shorter. Its structures disappear after October 11, but its scaffolding, fabric, and 500-plus trees are designed for second lives — a test case for whether temporary event architecture can leave nothing behind but its memory.
Source: ArchDaily
