00:00The Senate Palace is a public building located in Madrid, which houses the seat of the Senate, one of the
00:04two chambers that make up the Cortes Generales, the National Parliament of Spain.
00:09Situation
00:09The Senate Palace is located in the central district, immediately northeast of the Royal Palace.
00:14Its main facade faces the Spanish Marine Square.
00:18History
00:18College
00:19Built in the 16th century according to the plans of Francisco de Montalban, it was then a college of Augustinian religious called
00:25of the Incarnation or of Mary of Aragon, being part of the Monastery of the Incarnation.
00:30The college is one of the most notable institutions of the Madrid court, and its church contains several works of art.
00:34'El Greco, now kept in the Prado Museum.
00:37Senate
00:38The building was deconsecrated during the dismantling of the Spanish church at the beginning of the 19th century and allocated to a
00:43parliamentary use which it has retained to this day.
00:46In 1814, the Palace was the meeting place of the Cortes of Cadiz.
00:50The abolition of the Constitution by King Ferdinand VII in the same year led to the abandonment of the Palace.
00:55In 1820, the Constitution was restored and Isidro González Velázquez was tasked with transforming the church into
01:02a room suitable for hosting assemblies.
01:04The Cortes sat there again during the liberal triennium.
01:07Between 1823 and 1834, the absolute monarchy was restored.
01:11The royal statute of 1834 established a high assembly, the Chamber of Fathers, Estamento de Procher, which met
01:19temporarily at the Buen Retiro Barracks, before occupying the building from 1835.
01:23The interior of the buildings was redesigned between 1844 and 1850 by the architects Hannibal Alvarez Buquel and Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso,
01:32which also add a neoclassical facade to the whole.
01:35Depending on the political situation, the Palace changes its name and function and houses the seat of the Upper House
01:40until 1923, when the dictatorship of Primo de Rivra dissolved the Cortes.
01:45The Parliament of the Second Spanish Republic being unicameral, it met in the Palace of the Cortes, on Saint Street
01:51-Jerome, and during the constitutional debates, in the Crystal Palace.
01:54During the Franco regime, the search for the appearance of institutionalization, called "organic democracy," was made possible by the fact that...
02:01The traditional Senate building is occupied by the National Council of the movement, while the Francoist Cortes occupy the Palace
02:07of Saint-Jérôme Street.
02:08During the democratic transition, the building saw the establishment of the institution which, under the name of the Senate, participates in
02:14the drafting of the 1976 law for political reform, the first step towards democratization.
02:20From 1979 and the first general elections, the Palace has housed the Spanish Senate.
02:26In order to cope with the modernization of policy, the building was expanded between 1987 and 1991, on the
02:32Salvador Gaillard Ruiz de Galareta's projects for an annex building, whose semi-circular facade faces the street
02:38of Bélène.
02:39Subtitling by Radio-Canada
