Madrid Explained

Madrid, is home to some of the most fascinating buildings and public spaces in Europe.

Yet despite its monumental appearance and cultural richness, Madrid is actually a surprisingly young city compared to Rome, Paris or London.

Unlike many European capitals, Madrid doesn’t have a Roman past.

There are no great Roman ruins, no monumental cathedral inherited from the Middle Ages.

In fact, the rise of Madrid began relatively late, during the Renaissance.

In the 16th century, when Spain was flourishing as a prosperous empire, expanding its civilization in the New World, Madrid—its present-day capital—was nothing but a small fortified town with little importance.

During the Middle Ages, the king and the court did not rule from a single city, but frequently moved from one city to another according to political needs and war.

Powerful historic cities like Toledo, Burgos, and León competed for prominence.

In 1561, King Philip II decreed that Madrid was to be given the status of única corte, with the royal chancellery transferred from Toledo.

This insignificant town was chosen as the royal seat for two main reasons: its location near the geometric center of the Peninsula, and the political need to consolidate the unification of Spain by removing the seat of government from otherwise jealously competing historic cities.

Within a few decades, the city’s urban area grew significantly, developing an organic pattern in which streets radiated from medieval nuclei.

The clearest example of this, is Puerta del Sol—the Gate of the Sun—which used to be a gate to the old fortified town, and as the city grew, it became a central space for commerce.

Although it looks very different today, with the monumental Post Office dominating the square, it still preserves its medieval layout of streets radiating outward from the center of the city.

Calle Mayor was a street that crossed the entire city, stretching from the Alcázar—the king’s residence—to Puerta del Sol, and beyond.

Along this street, were situated noble palaces, taverns, and important medieval squares, including Plaza de la Villa—home to the old City Hall.

There were other important squares in the city such as Plaza de las Descalzas and Plaza de la Paja.

However, Plaza de la Villa is the only one that still has its medieval form with most of its original buildings.

For Madrid, the transitional element between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in terms of urbanism, is the Plaza Mayor—the main central square.

Plaza Mayor was originally a confluence of roads outside the medieval city walls, known as Plaza del Arrabal, the town’s market where commercial activities took place.

Plaza del Arrabal had an open, irregular form, but with the rapid growth of the city’s population that followed the establishment of the court in Madrid, it was considered necessary to enlarge the plaza into a new square worthy of the seat of the royal court.

The construction of Plaza Mayor was commenced in 1617 following the design of architect Juan Gómez de Mora.

A perfect confinement is achieved in the new heart of the city by carving a perfect rectangular space out of the medieval urban fabric.

At the time, an extensive Baroque system of streets connecting public spaces was being developed in many European cities, but in Spain this concept was rarely adopted.

Instead, major planned public spaces such as Plaza Mayor remained completely isolated from the city’s main streets, so that nothing would disturb their sense of enclosed space intended for public gathering—possibly a feature inherited from the courtyards of medieval mosques in Spain.

Plaza Mayor became the principal stage for public spectacles, being able to accommodate more than 50,000 people, some 4,000 of them in the enclosing buildings.

Uniquely Spanish urban activities that developed in the Plaza Mayor included bullfighting on horseback—a tradition that had already consolidated in Spain in the previous century, and from which later evolved the special-purpose plaza de toros—and autos de fe—solemn events by the Inquisition where

heretics were judged and executed—as well as religious celebrations such as Easter.

Serving as the backdrop for public ceremonies, Casa de la Panadería was the chief building of the square, recognizable by its steepled clock towers, its arcade on the base, and by the later frescoes on its facade.

The building functioned as a bread shop on the ground floor and housed the royal box on the first floor.

Something I like about Plaza mayor is the perspectives created within the main entrances to the precinct— Because the square is embedded within an organic medieval fabric, its access points are not coming in orthogonally, but approach at oblique angles.

Yet all of them converge visually toward the center—so you can be standing all the way across the street over there, and you’ll always see the central statue framed by the arch.

Plazas Mayores—main central squares—were the outstanding contribution of Spain to European urbanism, and Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, became the model of plazas mayores that would be exported into all the Spanish cities including those in the New World.

After Madrid became the permanent seat of the court, Philip II heavily modified the Moorish citadel that had stood on the site since the 9th century, converting it into the Real Alcázar de Madrid, which in its final phase—after successive additions made by later monarchs—resulted in a

hybrid of medieval and Renaissance architecture: a great mass dominating the western edge of Madrid.

Its plan preserved the footprint of the Moorish citadel, adapted to the border of the cliff on which it stood, above the river Manzanares.

The building was organized around two central courtyards, separated by the royal chapel in the middle.

The main facade faced a large forecourt, also inherited from the old citadel.

This elevation displayed a clear Renaissance character, with a symmetrical composition of lateral towers and a central body framing the main entrance.

Columns articulating the two upper levels framed each window, and paired columns were featured in the central body with a protruding gable bearing the royal coat of arms. Those steepled towers that defined its silhouette, are very characteristic of Madrid’s 17th century architecture,

and you can still see them in many buildings and churches that survive from that time.

On Christmas Eve 1734, a fire destroyed the Alcázar, and four years later construction began on the Palacio Real, the Royal Palace that we see today.

For this new residence, King Philip V, who had been born and raised at Versailles, wanted a more modern and monumental palace, so he commissioned the Italian Baroque architect Filippo Juvarra to design the building in the style of the great European palaces of the time.

Juvarra planned a huge three-court complex, but after his death, his successor, Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, changed the plans and constructed a single-court block.

The facade features columns of giant order over a rusticated ground floor with protruding sections at the corners and center, and the courtyard is composed of an arcade of two tiers with a recessed third level to reduce the impact of the scale,

thus achieving a well-lit space of excellent proportions.

Sacchetti’s design is heavily influenced by Bernini’s unrealized design for the Louvre in Paris, which features the exact same layout and elements.

On the opposite side of the Palacio Real you can see the Almudena Cathedral, but don’t be fooled by the Neoclassical appearance of its exterior, this is a 20th century building.

For most of its history, Madrid didn’t have a Cathedral, as the diocese of the region was located in the city of Toledo, so really the closest thing to a cathedral that Madrid ever had was the Colegiata de San Isidro, a beautiful baroque church located just a few blocks from here.

This church, though beautiful, is just an eclectic result of much later architectural ambitions.

In the second half of the 18th century, as the spirit of the Enlightenment spread across Europe, there was a growing ambition to put Spain at the level of other European powers in terms of scientific advancement, so, on the outskirts of the city was planned the Salón del Prado, a great tree-lined avenue designed to integrate art, science, and nature,

through three major architectural projects: an astronomical observatory, a botanical garden, and a royal museum—today the famous Museo del Prado.

These three projects were commissioned to one of the most illustrious architects of the time, Juan de Villanueva, who refined and consolidated in Spain the Neoclassical language of architecture.

For the Museo del Prado, Villanueva envisioned a building that combined the functions of a Natural History Museum and a Temple of Science intended to house learned societies.

A central block and two vast pavilions are attached by extended wings.

The building is characterized by screens of columns and arches, and a restrained use of ornament.

Under Ferdinand VII the Prado was transformed into a picture gallery—a use it continues to serve today—housing one of the finest collections of paintings in the world.

Within the urban project of the Salón del Prado, numerous landscape elements would be placed, among them the fountains of Neptune, Apollo, and Cybele.

These helped to articulate the axis of the avenue.

At the western edge of the city, Philip IV had built the Palacio del Buen Retiro in 1630.

As its name suggests, it was conceived as a palace of retreat, used as a secondary royal residence, surrounded by extensive gardens.

Palacio del Buen Retiro was seriously damaged during the Napoleonic Wars, and gradually fell into decline over the course of the 19th century, until most of the complex was eventually demolished.

Only two elements survived: the Casón—the ballroom—and the Salón de Reinos—a room used for diplomatic receptions.

You can still see these two buildings today, now absorbed into the urban fabric of Madrid.

The former palace gardens, however, endured and were transformed in the 19th century into a picturesque, Romantic landscape, enriched with architectural and sculptural elements, before being opened to the public as a city park—today known as Parque del Buen Retiro.

Enclosing the entire city, was the Customs wall of Philip IV, built in 1625.

This wall was never a truly defensive structure, but instead served for centuries as the administrative boundary of the city, regulating goods and controlling access to Madrid.

The wall was demolished in the 1860s. However, two of its royal gates still survive.

One is the famous Puerta de Alcalá—a Neoclassical gate that stood on the main road leading to the neighboring city of Alcalá de Henares.

The other is Puerta de Toledo, designed in the form of a triumphal arch, and erected to commemorate the restoration of the monarchy after the Napoleonic occupation.

By the late 19th century, Madrid’s uncontrolled population growth as a result of industrialization, lead to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions.

So it became necessary to expand the city outward in a controlled way, with the aim of creating a modern capital city, comparable to other European capitals like Paris under the reforms of Napoleon III.

So a grid expansion of the city known as “ensanche” or “enlargement” was proposed in 1860 with straight, wide streets, reinforcing the idea of light and air, seeking a healthy city, very different to the medieval, organic fabric of the old city.

The plan also designated spaces for housing as well as spaces for parish churches, hospitals, and other public buildings.

The north would comprise the high society, with elegant neighborhoods like Salamanca and Chamberí.

The east would comprise the middle classes and the south the working classes and industry.

This segregation was not entirely intentional, but it reflects the social structure of the 19th century.

The ensanche of Madrid was carried out over several decades, and solved many of the issues that the city presented.

However, by the early 20th century, the historic center remained dense and overcrowded, so in order to modernize the old city and improve its circulation, over 300 buildings were demolished to make way for Gran Vía, a great avenue that cuts through the medieval fabric,

planned to accommodate great hotels, theaters, and commercial buildings.

Something I think is interesting about Gran Vía, is that you can see how architectural styles evolved as Gran Vía was being developed—in the first section, Beaux Arts buildings predominate, and as you keep walking along the avenue, these gradually give way to Art Deco buildings, which had become popular by the late 1920s when Gran Vía was finished.

You can distinguish three separate periods of urban unity in Madrid.

When the city was established as the capital in 1561, Spain was ruled by the house of the Austrias—the Habsburg dynasty—and you clearly see a characteristic Madrid style in the architecture—sober Renaissance forms in austere brick buildings with details in stone, towers

with steeples, a Plaza Mayor, and a layout of the city that organically develops as the city grows.

In 1700 the last king of the Austrias died without an heir, and the French Bourbon dynasty ascended to the Spanish throne.

The Bourbons shifted towards a very French-style centralist and absolute monarchy and you can see this clearly reflected in the architecture—more monumental and symmetrical forms made entirely in stone, like the new Royal Palace with an Italian Baroque style, other buildings featuring Italian and French influences, and a more axial

urban planning like Salón del Prado, which follows the new trends of European monumental urbanism.

The third period, defined by the Ensanche and the opening of Gran Vía, marks the emergence of the modern capital of Spain.

These three layers form the complex urban identity of Madrid: a city where organic medieval growth, Baroque order, and modern planning coexist,

each one still legible in its streets, shaping the way you experience the city today.

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