San Vicente Gate

Composed of an arch and two shutters, the first is adorned with two Doric columns on the outside and two pilasters on the inside. For the replica, in concrete veneered with gray granite and limestone, the moldings of the upper cornices that were still preserved from the original were used. Among the reproduced elements, the ornaments stand out, the work of José Luis Parés Parra.

Designed in 1775 by Francisco Sabatini according to the model late-baroque aesthetic that presided over the contemporary execution of the Alcalá gate, the origin of the San Vicente gate, like that of other of the most renowned Madrid gates, is due to the fact that One of the Carlos III's most tenacious efforts consisted of the beautification of the roads that led to the Royal Sites; one of them was the Camino de El Pardo that linked both palaces. Called San Vicente because in the place there was a previous door of little artistic value adorned with the statue of this saint, it would be an enclave of crossfires on the aforementioned royal itinerary, today a crossroads of urban roads.
Its insufficiency in the functional order in the face of the successive growth of road flows, which will turn this historical, urban and monumental crossroads into a "bottleneck", at the foot of the Palacio de Oriente, the Sabatini gardens, the Real Campo del Moro and the San Vicente slope, between the Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto and the Paseo de la Florida, with its beautiful perspectives on the horizon of Casa de Campo, as well as the lack of income registration that its passage had, makes it obsolete and made it become a gate, which was then closed for more than a century until its dismantling in 1892, its stone being chopped to be used in the road surface. Attempted to rebuild without success during the regency of María Cristina, in 1952 the Villanueva fountain was built in its old location, today installed on the Camoens promenade in the Parque del Oeste.
Although in 1962 the Madrid City Council approved the construction of a new gate, progressive urban transformations took place in the area and it would not be until 1994 when the first stone of the current gate was laid, a definitive replica of Sabatini's and worthy impersonation exercise. Once the works on the Príncipe Pío interchange (on the original North Station) and the burying of the M-30 have been completed, which have affected it very closely in recent years, a resurrected San Vicente gate seems to have definitively rejoined the latest urban remodeling plans for the area, thus perpetuating its status as repository of the legacy of Sabatini and the king known as the best mayor of Madrid. patrimonioypaisaje.madrid.es/portales/monumenta/es/Monumentos-y-Edificios-Singulares/Monumentos/Puerta-de-San-Vicente

Spanish triumphal arch, nice to see