One of the oldest buildings in western Madrid is the Casa Torre de los Lujanes on Plaza de la Villa - or, as we call it, Lujanes House on Plaza de la Villa. This building is one of the few surviving homes of wealthy Madrid citizens of the 15th century.
Since then, the building's exterior has changed repeatedly: towers and separate houses were added, combining Eastern and European architectural styles: irregular geometric forms of the structures, stone masonry on the facades, and cozy inner courtyards. Some towers, thanks to their height, were used for a long time as optical telegraph stations to transmit signals between Madrid and Aranjuez.
Over its long history, Lujanes House was the residence of the King of France, Francis I, and later came under the authority of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Department of Political, Physical and Natural Sciences. Today, its walls house the residence of the Madrid Royal Economic Society.
