Here’s a fun game: archaeological dig or building a new Apple Store? In at least one case, the answer is both. In what’s supposed to be the basement of a new Apple Store in Madrid, workers have uncovered a 15th-century hospital.
While renovating a building the building at 1 Puerto del Sol, the construction team found the outer walls of the Buen Suceso hospital, which was razed in 1854 in favour of expanding the Puerto del Sol. Some of the ruins had already been discovered in 2009, when a new train station was being erected. This find delayed the construction of the rail station by 10 months, and the wall is now preserved behind glass panels. But Apple is still ploughing through with building its 11th Spain location. While it has preserved historical aspects of other stores (take its Paris Louvre location, for example), that might not be the case with these hospital walls.
Permits for the new store were issued before anyone was aware of the ruins, and apparently the director of Madrid’s Heritage Department told Apple it could just build the new floor to “symbolically” mimic the lines of the old walls. Peace, history, now please everyone buy some iPads. [El País via 9to5Mac]
Picture: L. Sevillano/El País