Javier Oliva, on the Hell of Building El Escorial: «It Took 21 Years and Three Architects to Felipe II»

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There is something about the stone colossus that Philip II erected ; I do not know what, what I know, that weighs on the visitor of the Monastery of San Lorenzo of El Escorial. Perhaps the roar of the wind that strikes today with fury against the facade; or perhaps the 33,000 square meters that steals from the mountain. «The space is equivalent to five football fields!» Javier Oliva, finalist of the Nadal prize in 2019, uses the universal unit o…