Caja Mágica

The mesh that changes its skin

By day, the 25-meter-high metal mesh panels make the prism opaque and reflective; by night, the volume lights up over the lake of the Parque Lineal del Manzanares. Dominique Perrault did not design a conventional dance floor: he devised a machine of steel, aluminum, concrete, and glass with three stadiums under one box. The mobile roofs combine 27 opening positions. The slab of the central court, about 102 by 70 meters and nearly 1,200 tons, can be raised or slid to leave the stands open to the sky. This flexibility—designed to host three matches at once in any weather—is also what allows the interior to be transformed into a concert hall, a set, or a club venue.

Born for Games that never arrived

The project was called the Olympic Tennis Center while Madrid vied for 2012 and 2016. It occupies about 17 hectares in San Fermín, Usera district, on a vacant lot between highways and tracks. The City Council inaugurated it on April 29, 2009; on May 8, it opened to the public with the Masters 1000 and a Lenny Kravitz concert before about 8,000 attendees in the central court. Since that year, it has been the permanent home of the Mutua Madrid Open. The main building totals 83,500 m². Stadium 1 reaches 12,427 seats with retractable stands. Ownership is municipal and it is managed by Madrid Destino. The complex is articulated in two covered volumes—the box itself and the Tennis Indoor, about 600 meters long—joined by a pedestrian footbridge between Camino de Perales and Embajadores.

From the inaugural rock to the festival circuit

The musical vocation was set on the first night. In November 2010, the venue hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards. In 2016 and 2017, Mad Cool occupied stadiums and the esplanade: the first edition used three indoor stages and two outdoor ones and exceeded 100,000 attendees; Download brought the rock and metal circuit. On the outdoor esplanade, Vetusta Morla gathered 38,000 people. In 2024, Stadium 1 was the set for Junior Eurovision.

Open-air electronics, not a resident club

Brunch Electronik is not the venue: it is a brand that, in its autumn season, installs the Open Air format at the Caja Mágica, from afternoon to dawn. The venue does not maintain a weekly club schedule; it opens according to the event. With the roofs closed, the same architecture that covers the clay court leaves a festival-scale venue on the banks of the Manzanares.