One of the main streets of Madrid and one of the city’s architectural icons. It is Madrid’s center for culture and leisure. The length of the Gran Vía is 1315 meters, divided in three sections, and it occupies a total area of  141,150 square meters. The buildings of the Gran Vía, are all part of a unified plan, and they all exhibit a similar height and respect the width of the street. However, since it took almost half a century to be completed, one can perceive an obvious evolution in its architecture, from the historicist styles of the first installment to the functionalism of the square surrounding La Plaza de España.