Places in Madrid in danger of extinction

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There is a neighbor in the Guindalera neighborhood who resists, like the irreducible Gallic village of Asterix, in a modernist chalet sandwiched between two newly built blocks of flats.

Two realities that coexist without hardly looking at each other.

The image was captured by journalist Clara Rivas.

She uploaded it to her Twitter account and it spread like wildfire.

A character that speaks of a Madrid that adheres to brick as the last bulwark.

The same Madrid that, sooner rather than later, will only last in the memory of those who inhabited it.

"Architecture is the best document of community life," says Miguel Ángel Cajigal, art historian known for his alter ego El Barroquista on social networks.

"We inhabit the space in our image and likeness. A "simple" house helps us to document any period of history in a way that few documents can match."

The few chalets that remain today from

, a group of single-family houses and semi-detached hotels built between 1890 and 1906, inspired by the architect Mariano Belmás and described by

as "presumptuous, lewd, fragile, in aggressive bad taste, of a cackling vanity, typical of a town of shopkeepers and bureaucrats", they do so under the siege of time.

Originally distributed in the space bounded by Cardenal Belluga, Castelar, Roma, Cartagena, Francisco Navacerrada, Campanario, Ruiz Perelló and Avenida de los Toreros streets, the raison d'être of these homes was the introduction of economic construction in Madrid architecture. linked to the hygienist visions of the early 20th century.

Previously, the pre-industrial Madrid of the previous century had found in the proliferation of corralas the solution to house so many families who came to the capital in search of work.

Located in enclaves close to old manufacturing areas of the capital, such as

, their idiosyncrasy also found shelter in the words of the literati.

If

described them as a "small, agitated and feverish world", in

he mentions his tenants as neighbors who spent most of the day talking among "lots of clothes hanging, lots of yellow slips and lots of sheepskin on to dry".

According to data from the INE real estate census, Madrid still has

.

Peeking at them is doing it with a pinch of our history.

As is frequenting the grocery store that, preserved, is maintained in front of large stores.

Walk between haberdashery and stationery stores.

Or, simply, stop to listen to the canned recording of the penultimate sharpener that is still around the neighborhood.

Looking back, the architect David García-Asenjo believes that

today .

"For decades, another type of city has been promoted, as Jorge Dioni López recounts in

he argues.

"The center and the traditional city have been abandoned to replace them with a model in which social relations are carried out in a different way. And these areas of the city have been transformed as the reason for their configuration, purchases and relationships in the immediate environment. Gentrification seems to be an unstoppable process that is not finding an answer to allow people who live or have a business in a certain neighborhood to continue doing so".

Walking among the workers' houses that districts like

still treasure is also, in a certain way, an act of resistance.

These two territories are an example of how the neo-Mudéjar style, with replicas in other parts of the capital, such as Atocha, Arganzuela or Aluche, optimized the construction of houses for workers with a brick.

Chance has wanted the exhibitions

and

coincide in time.

The first shows the work of Santi Vaquero portraying Vallecas between the late 70s and early 80s and can be visited until December 15 at Quinta del Sordo (Rosario, 15).

The second delves into the work of the photographer Ismael Peral, whose snapshots reflect the importance of the popular Neo-Mudéjar in the Tetuán district.

It will remain open until January 20 at the María Zambrano Municipal Public Library (Plaza Donoso, 5).

"In addition to all the traditional architecture of neighborhoods like Tetuán and Vallecas, there is another architecture, which is the one that was built in the 50s and 60s to accommodate all rural immigration and that sought to solve the problems of substandard housing:

", points out García-Asenjo, who also has an impact on the disappearance of the industrial heritage of Méndez Álvaro, in which some warehouse converted into offices has remained as a vestige. "The fabric of industrial buildings in the Porto area has been replaced by a fabric residential, with little memory of what was done there", he adds. "There are activities that cannot be maintained, because society evolves and changes the city and our preferences.

But the story could be witnessed in some way that allows part of the memory to be recovered".

"Madrid, like all large cities, suffers from

", bastes Cajigal.

"In addition to homes and commercial premises, the destruction of highly relevant industrial spaces is almost a historical tradition. In this sense, it is impossible not to recall the demolition of Miguel Fisac's Laboratorios JORBA, his popular "pagoda", in 1999. In At present there are other buildings in the same situation and it is very possible that in 20 years we will put our hands to our heads just as we do when thinking about the missing Fisac ​​building".

Because a city, he stresses, is not its monuments but, above all, its streets and squares, the spaces in which citizens live and work.

"In History of Architecture we always say that what is told and what the majority of the population knows is the history of the buildings built by the rich and powerful," continues Cajigal.

"If you open any historical architecture manual, you will see palaces, great temples and some public buildings. The legal protection of built heritage is a reflection of this bias. A house is protected as long as it is imposing, palatial and richly decorated. We suffer, sometimes all levels,

that causes the irreparable loss of those buildings that write the most complete history of our cities", he concludes.

"When we lose these most popular architectural expressions,

and the memory of the society that built them," García-Asenjo agrees.

"In many cases, they weren't of great quality, but their scale helps us understand what that city was like."

Because, as he himself recalls, architecture reflects much more than the passing of time.

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