News from Madrid: The developer’s panel in charge of the building has decided to fire the architect claiming delays and budget problems. The comission of the building has been handled according to spanish regulations via an open competition, with the result of an 80 million euro contract being adjudicated.

After the international competition in 2000, Navarro made it to the final and won the contract for designing the building, a representative theatre complex in the center of madrid called Teatro Canal, a 35.000 sqm choreography and dance center. It was going to be one of the most emblematic oeuvres of the then president of the community Alberto Ruiz Gallardon. With an overbudget of 25% (100M euros in total - not that much considering the scale of the works) and a delay of two years, the new president Esperanza Aguirre has decided to ditch Baldeweg from the direction of the building.

It is an open secret that differences between Gallardon (now mayor of Madrid) and Aguirre played a role here. So far the international media has not written anything about it (as far as I know) so the links are mostly in spanish:

The spanish architectural comunnity has been calling for support to Navarro - ‘Aguirre “despide” a Navarro Baldeweg’ (edgargonzalez.com)
William J.R. Curtis in ‘El Pais’: Maestro de la luz
And a whole list of prominent artist and architects is protesting against the decision - ‘Arquitectos y artistas declaran la guerra a Esperanza Aguirre’