British Cemetery
Sara Medialdea, ABC journalist, has dedicated more 25 years of his life to narrate the social and political life of Madrid.During that time he has discovered countless corners of the capital little or nothing known, which sometimes hide behind an anonymous door.From that unstoppable experience was born 500 ideas to discover Madrid» (Ediciones La Libreria), a bedside book to go for a walk on weekends (in the case of Madrid) or to get to the capital with an agenda of visits that go beyond the central almond of the city.In this report, Sara has selected ten of those 500 places. Secrets of Madrid , told by who knows them best.
British Cemetery
Located in the Madrid district of Carabanchel, on Comandante Fontanes Street, 7 , the British Cemetery is considered English soil: it is owned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England.It was built in order to bury those born in Great Britain, Christians but not Catholics, who were not admitted to Spanish graveyards, although there are also inside Hebrew burials and even some Muslim.
The cemetery dates back to the 19th century , and is practically fully occupied, except for an area of columbariums located on what was once the guardian's house.shield of the United Kingdom adorns its entrance.Its commissioning came after arduous negotiations between both governments, the British and Spanish , and agreements with the Madrid City Council at that time, since a swap had to be made of land to start it up.
From its entrance it appreciate their peculiarities; a very« british» style which differentiates it from Spanish cemeteries to use.It has about 600 graves .
The large British colony that has inhabited Madrid in the last two hundred years has left a broad reflection in the English cemetery: there are buried many of the personalities of foreign origin who have settled in Spain, such as the Loewe, the Bauer or the Terscht .A plaque at the entrance remembers that there was also there Photographer Charles Clifford, who died in Madrid on New Year's Day of 1863.The plaque is dedicated by his widow.
San Jose Hospital
The Institute Homeopatico-Hospital San Jose was built, on the street of Eloy Gonzalo, 3-5 , by order of Jose Nunez Pernia, doctor of Isabel II's chamber, through its foundation Hohnemanniana Matritense Society, directed to extend homeopathy.The Society was born in 1845 and the doctor had to resort to a popular subscription to build it.actions of 700 people from different parts of Europe and Latin America, managed to raise more than 433,000 reais .The construction cost double and Dr.Nunez took care of the difference in his own pocket.
It must have been a peculiar learned, since in addition to dealing with real health, he also attended two days a week for free in his Atocha street consultation, 16.The building of the Homeopathic Institute, declared of cultural interest in 1997, is an authentic sight gift.It has a unique glazed gallery , and still retains in some of its rooms the original tiles on the wall, as well as the chapel, now converted into an auditorium, with a frieze containing the names of the first Spanish homeopaths.
After many avatars, including their conversion into a convalescence hospital and Red Socorro dining room during the civil war, the building resented the passage of time and deterioration o.The City Council had to intervene in the substitute action, and the Community of Madrid recently undertook its restoration.
Parque El Capricho
In a scale from 1 to 10, the park of El Capricho should be given an 11: it is a wonderful green space , full of architectural surprises, with a more than novel history and a landscape and plant capacity that they turn into a unique reed.Where, by the way, neither bicycles nor balls are allowed; a whole statement of principles for a park that is, in the background, a museum in the middle of nature.
Nestled in the Alameda de Osuna , its 14 hectares are a continuous surprise.Given its variety of species, it can be said without risk to be mistaken that El Capricho is not one, but four parks in the same place, given how different it is if you visit in spring, summer, autumn or winter.
Its origin dates from 1784, when the Dukes of Osuna acquired the estate, and the Duchess, considered the most intelligent woman of the time, displayed her artistic concerns, good taste and knowledge creating a park designed for enjoyment from sight.The result could not be otherwise than what it was: a paradise in which to pick up when it was his will or invite friends and acquaintances.
El Capricho is called that because it is precisely , full of cravings : the duchess turned them into architectural jewels, like the exedra, the promenade of the D uelistas, the French flowerbed, the labyrinth, the old woman's house, the hermitage, the Bacchus temple...Walking through El Capricho is to find a statue of Saturn devouring her children, and two steps beyond, enjoy the incomparable aroma of lime trees, to follow and stumble on the pond and its house of gray hair, of oriental inspiration.
A square designed by Dali
Madid is a box of surprises.There are of all types, and this has the double interest of belonging to the most current history, and sometimes for that reason more unknown, and to involve one of the greatest geniuses of Spanish painting: Salvador Dali.And it is from his unlimited creativity that the idea of the square of the avenue of Felipe II and the monument that adorns it, dedicated to the physicist Isaac Newton.
It seems being that it was in a conversation between the mayor of Madrid Enrique Tierno Galvan and the painter Dali when the idea of that monument to Newton emerged, to from a sculpture of the Museum of Figueras that was based on the painting by the artist titled Fosfeno de Laporte.The humanoid figure seen at the bottom of the painting is the one reproduced in Dali Square.
The Statue, 3.90 meters high, is placed on a bucket of black polished stone whose four side faces read the letters that form the word« Gala» ;, the muse and companion of the artist. Behind the figure appears a huge dolmen of granite-its upper stone weighs 350 tons-, which first was going to be more naturalistic, but finally turned out to have a strong geometric shape.The engineer Jesus Jimenez and the municipal architect Alfonso Guemes developed the idea, which was accompanied by a work on the pavement of the whole square, a pavement that, with great disgust of neighborhood associations in the area, was replaced in 2005 after a municipal remodeling.
House and tower of the Lujanes and House by Don Alvaro de Lujan: The oldest houses in Madrid
Both the tower and the streets of the Plaza de la Villa, 2 and 3, were ordered to be built by Don Alvaro de Lujan in 1470 approximately.They may be the oldest in present-day Madrid.A multitude of different facilities have passed through the house, including its current function as the headquarters of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which has been occupying it since 1858.Headquarters of the Municipal Newspaper Archive.
It retains its main doorway, with three noble shields in stone, and a second one with a beautiful arch.It has a bright interior courtyard, to which the press offices of the near Madrid City Council at a time not too far away, in which the conditions of the property were not exactly the right ones, and came to enter-who writes this has witnessed it-through one of the windows that gave the patio.
The tower is square and retains all its charm.Lower floors were the original entrance to the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country , which was accessed by a horseshoe arch with unique stone segments in Madrid, located on Codo Street.
San Pedro ad Link
Another not well-known jewel of Madrid is the church of San Pedro ad Link, in the historic center of Vallecas Villa. Built according to the Juan de Herrera project in 1600, Ventura Rodriguez subsequently added, in 1775, the tower that can still be seen.Luxury names for a temple of impressive facade .Then it has undergone other restorations: that of Caballero Lasierra in 1965, and that of Avila Jalvo between 1996 and 2002.It has been of cultural interest since 1995.
The town of Vallecas had an important population center since the fifteenth century; hence there are several documents that include the existence of temples in the area where San Pedro ad Link would later rise.But the arrival of the court in Madrid also increases the population of this town so close, and from there the construction of a temple larger than the previous ones.
If one is situated at the foot of the magnificent staircase that leads to the temple-also located on an elevation-, the vision is formidable: an impressive rigging facade of Toledo style , with a beautiful cover and a tower that stands out for its elegant plant, its semicircular arches and the spire with which it is topped off.to be subjected to a careful restoration after suffering a partial collapse.
Inside, it has a basilica floor with three naves, and the plant is covered with a canon vault.It treasures paintings by Rizzi and Lucas Giordano , the latter explaining the miracle of the liberation of St.Peter from his ca denas-ad links-through the intercession of an angel.
The most beautiful car park in the world
Italian architect Teresa Sapey He was in charge of the remodeling of the park of the Vazquez de Mella square. And from the beginning it was proposed to turn it into a singular space, where its functionality does not constrict the possibilities of the place.> more light.And also color , two concepts that are not usually common in underground car parks, characterized before by the grayness of the concrete and the unique clarity of the fluorescents.
Teresa decided to give it another air to that parking.First, because of its situation: it was at the entrance of a very special neighborhood of Madrid, that of Chueca , that the homosexual collective managed to wake up, recover and take away from the decay in which its streets and many of its shops had fallen, so in the exterior access to the parking lot I put an inmen so red ribbon -symbol of the fight against AIDS-made of metallic material.
But the real novelties are inside: neon lights at the pedestrian entrance, which come on every night and project their light towards the street; and, a little below, on the first break of the stairs, the sign that gives name to the intervention: Chueca An-dante. The walls of the car park are red, the roof black , and a collection Black and white photos are responsible for decorating the set with images related to love in all its aspects.And displayed along the walls, phrases of the« Divine comedy» ;:« Love that loves obliges the one who is Beloved, tie me to your arms with pleasure so strong that, as you see, not even dead leaves me»
Water travel
This if It is an authentic hidden treasure of Madrid: the remains of the water traps for which, 400 years ago , the city was filled with the liquid element.Although unused many years ago-progress, it is already You know-they are still a labyrinth network of kilometers of underground conduits, some in very good condition-they were made conscientiously-and even, in some cases, you can visit ar.
Some crossed the Castellana, others bombed the Cibeles and the armored chambers of the Bank of Spain ; there are them under the ground of the Tetuan district...sometimes, the new constructions or the conduits have cut them off, preventing the passage of water.Also sometimes they get less water supply-the rain is intercepted« intercepted» through the paved floors-but it is still possible to see, under some parks that they cross, as the drops slide from the roof through the brick vaults.
Walking inside is a whole adventure : of a person's size, narrow, and with dozens of ramifications going in the direction you go to know where, every few meters there are lateral cavities on which to support a candle.You walk in total darkness -except for the light that one carries with it-, with the water at our feet like a gentle stream, or up to the thigh in the areas where more quantity is received...
The galleries were built by opening vertical wells with brick walls, to collect the water coming from the drainage of the wet sands.A ceramic pipes distributed the water along tunnels. The depth ranged between 5 and 40 meters , and the distance to travel, between 7 and 12 kilometers.
Madrid had the ideal configuration for the development of this infrastructure: its old town, about 70 meters above the level of the Manzanares River , was structured around two slopes of runoff, and drained by 15 streams whose names have then passed to the streets that run through the old channels: Barquillo, Recoletos, Infantas, Prado, Segovia...
Barrio de las Letras
This set of streets, in a few poc as apples, if it is a Madrid rarity of which very few cities in the world-perhaps none-can boast: a neighborhood in which the greatest geniuses of literature from a period historically known as Century of O ro for the quality of his figures.And all, or almost, living wall to wall, coinciding in the streets, in taverns and in churches.
¡ What would they do the English, and let's not say the French, if they had a neighborhood with these characteristics! Because Pedro Antonio de Alarcon, Luis de Gongora, Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, Miguel de Cervantes, Felix Lope de Vega and a very long number of names that have passed to the history of resided at the same time literature.
The neighborhood now boasts its origins with some plaques in certain streets and a special cobblestone that contains some phrases of celebratory works of its former neighbors.But shortly after thinking, It is exciting to think that at the exit of the visit of the original house of Lope de Vega , with just a few steps one is in the corner where the residence of the author of Don Quixote was in time , and a street in parallel is the church where he was buried, and somewhat higher up the parish where everyone heard Mass.Certainly, this de las Letras is a unique neighborhood where there are.
Mariblanca Statue
Mariblanca has been associated with the P uerta del Sol from Madrid since the 17th century.It was born as a top auction of a fountain that was commissioned to decorate the Puerta del Sol and designed by the Italian Rutilio Gaci, in 1618.That figure in white marble, a mode of Venus, Diana or symbol of the Faith, began to be popularly known by the people of Madrid as the Mariblanca.The statue itself was commissioned to Ludovico Turqui , although it is not known if this, that the He brought it from Florence in 1625, he personally sculpted it or bought it.He came to Alicante as a whole, but on the trip to Madrid he was left without a head, which resulted in a price discount.
Time passed and the deterioration came, among other causes, for those who went up to the source.That is why, in 1726 he was commissioned to Pedro de Ribera to repair it.And this change some elements, hindering« climbs» ; and keeping Mariblanca in the auction.In 1781 the fountain pylon is replaced by a smaller one, by order of Ventura Rodriguez.And in 1838 it was decided to eliminate it due to its poor general condition.Some parts were taken to the Plaza de las Descalzas , forming a smaller fountain in which the Mariblanca continued to appear, but the muse ended up in the municipal warehouse at the end of the 19th century, and there it was until in 1912 it was rescued and it took me to the Retiro Park.
Once again disappeared from the public thoroughfare, and again found in 1969, now in Recoletos, it was vandalized in 1984.It was very carefully restored, and placed in the lobby of the main staircase of the House de la Villa in the time of Mayor Enrique Tierno Galvan.
The one that can now be seen at Puerta del Sol is a replica of it, made in 1986 and which has since varied its position at least twice: first it was where the original source was go at the confluence with Arenal.
There is yet another Mariblanca, in the backyard of the pavilion of the Catalan farmhouse of the Casa de Campo.
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