TÍTULO: EL PATRONATO DE CASAS MILITARES: ANÁLISIS TIPOLÓGICO DE LAS VIVIENDAS EN LA MANZANA ENTRE LAS CALLES SANTA ENGRACIA, Mª DE GUZMAN, MAUDES Y ALENZA.

The present communication tries to analysise the houses constructed by the Foundation of Military Houses in Madrid, and located in the block surroended by the streets Santa Engracia, Maria de Guzmán, Alenza and Maudes.The election of this concrete location is due to the outstanding construction of the buildings that responds to different delimited stylistic periods within the second quarter of 20th century, and they perform two very differentiated functional and formal answers.The investigation starts at the publications and memories edited by the Spanish Ministry of Defense, and from the original projects of the residential development. The analysis of the graphical sources (planes of arrangement of volumes and distribution of the houses, plants, elevations and sections) has allowed the typological comparison between the two different constructed residential proposals in the block, within the period that includes from 1928 to 1948.General Leopoldo de Saro, connoisseur of the serious crisis of military house that took place mainly in Madrid, tries to resolve this problem with the creation of the Foundation on February the 25th, 1928. At first stage, Antonio Arenas Ramos, commander of Engineers, is entrusted with a military houses´s project, detailing the most appropriate types for the different military categories. Three types were projected according to rank: Type A: lodged by generals and chief. B type: inhabited by captains or lieutenants. Type C: for sergeant majors and sergeants.The first promotion constructed in Madrid is made up of three blocks of type A and five of type B in the plot of the street Santa Engracia. With a total of 130 homes, it responds in a clear way to the type of residential tower block of Madrid extension. It is distributed in eight great row constructions, a eight-story building with two houses each floor and inner patios. With a unitary and classic design of the facades, it surprises the finishing of the inner patios, where original photos transmit a work finished in a later period. The project, of 1928, is of own Arenas Ramos and Cayetano de la Jara.After the War Civil, the problem of the house in Madrid was still more pressing, and the Foundation projects in 1943 the buildings that close the block surroended by the streets Maria de Guzmán, Alenza and Maudes. They constructed a total of 275 homes for officials and 11 for sergeant majors. It is possible to be observed in the original plans that the constructions´s distribution is far different from the previous constructions. Great blocks in T-shaped with access from the Maudes Street or the interiors to the block conform a very interesting complex where the form of the plants and the retreats of the volumes create suggestive games of lights and shades. The original project had an interest addition when not being built the interior of this and to destine a great surface to sport areas and landscaped zones, in a clear propositive advance from the classic enclosed block models.