In the panorama of great international monuments, El Molar, a small municipality north of Madrid, has captured all the attention this summer after applying decisively to host the “Bull of Spain”, a monumental and highly controversial project: a metal sculpture of more than 300 meters high that would surpass even the Statue of Liberty and would almost equal the Eiffel Tower. The project, promoted by the Spanish Academy of Bullfighting, wants to turn the fighting bull into the new national tourist symbol, with the ambition of becoming the greatest attraction for visitors in Spain and compete in worldwide notoriety with icons such as Machu Picchu or the Sagrada Familia.
The Academy’s communiqué places special emphasis on surpassing France as the leading power in tourism, and completely ignores the weariness that is expressed among the population, even in the form of protests in cities such as Barcelona, due to the problems caused by this industry. Nor is it mentioned that Spain is usually second in the list of the most visited countries in the world, without the need to create any monument for this purpose. And finally, it is not taken into account that these great works are at least a century old and that joining this now seems to be some kind of attempt to demonstrate a power that no longer fits with the current zeitgeist .
What will the giant bull of El Molar look like?
Fernando Hernández, councilman of Tourism of the town and member of Vox, is the main promoter of this action in El Molar. His idea, as he has communicated to media such as the newspaper El Mundo, is that the sculpture, visible from miles away, has at its feet a tourist and commercial complex specialized in the bullfighting world: themed restaurants, souvenir stores and spaces for dissemination. This fits perfectly with the Spanish Academy of Bullfighting’s idea of turning the monument “into Spain’s main tourist icon”.
The candidacy of El Molar has generated a wave of social and media debate, both for its unprecedented dimensions and for the bullfighting theme of the monument -considered by some as a cultural symbol, by others as a source of controversy due to animal abuse-. The capital has already refused to host the colossus, so El Molar competes against more than 30 municipalities that, from Burgos or Guadalajara, have also shown interest.
This peculiar project could join another equally chimerical project to be built in Boadilla del Monte. In this municipality of the Community of Madrid it is planned to erect the largest statue of Christ in the world: 37 meters high and almost 60 meters wide, surpassing the one in Rio de Janeiro. The monument, promoted by the Association of Devotees of the Heart of Jesus and financed by private donations, will be located on municipal land near the M-50 and the Financial City. The sculpture, hollow inside and built in reinforced concrete, will have a giant golden heart accessible to visitors and aspires to become a new international pilgrimage destination. However, for now they have not secured the funding to start with the first phase.