Modern
Madrid is enclosed by
dreary suburbs: acres of
high-rise concrete seemingly
dumped without thought onto the
dustiest parts of the plain. The
great spread to suburbia was
encouraged under Franco, who
also extended the city
northwards along the spinal
route of the Paseo de la
Castellana, to accommodate his
ministers and minions during
development extravaganzas of the
1950s and 1960s. Large,
impressive, and unbelievably
sterile, these constructions
leave little to the imagination;
but then, you're unlikely to
spend much time in these parts
of town.
In the centre, things are
very different. The oldest
streets at the very heart of
Madrid are crowded with ancient
buildings, spreading out in
concentric circles which reveal
the development of the city over
the centuries. Only the cramped
street plan gives much clue as
to what was here before Madrid
became the Habsburg
capital (in 1561), but the
narrow alleys around the Plaza
Mayor are still among the city's
liveliest and most atmospheric.
Later growth owed much to the
French tastes of the Bourbon
dynasty in the eighteenth
century, when for the first time
Madrid began to develop a style
and flavour of its own.
The early nineteenth
century brought invasion and
turmoil to Spain as Napoleon
established his brother Joseph
on the throne. Madrid, however,
continued to flourish, gaining
some very attractive buildings
and squares. With the onset of
the twentieth century, the
capital became the hotbed of the
political and intellectual
discussions which divided the
country; tertulias
(political/philosophical
discussion circles) sprang up in
cafés across the city (some of
them are still going) as the
country entered the turbulent
years of the end of the monarchy
and the foundation of the Second
Republic.
The Civil War , of
course, caused untold damage,
and led to forty years of
isolation, which you can still
sense in Madrid's idiosyncratic
style. The Spanish capital has
changed immeasurably, however,
in the two and a half decades
since Franco's death, guided by
a poet-mayor, the late and much
lamented Tierno Galván. His
efforts - the creation of parks
and renovation of public spaces
and public life - have left an
enduring legacy, and were a
vital ingredient of the movida
madrileña , the
"happening Madrid",
with which the city broke
through in the 1980s. The
present local authorities have
adopted a more restrictive
attitude towards bar and club
licensing and unfortunately
there has been a tendency
towards homogenization with the
rest of Europe as franchised
fast-food joints and coffee bars
spring up all over the place.
Nevertheless, in making the
transition from provincial
backwater to major European
capital, Madrid has still
managed to preserve its own
stylish and quirky identity.
