In Madrid there is a hórreo. And, thinking about it, it makes all the sense in the world. Because if there is a Galician architect with work in the capital, that is Antonio Palacios. Because the streets also speak, and in the Barrio del Pilar they do it with an Atlantic accent: Ferrol, Arteixo, Padrón. And because the square of Corcubión is so called and in its center, since 1973, there is a hórreo.
It is a hórreo of the Fisterra type, a stone cabazo of generous proportions that went from Campo do Rollo, in Corcubión, to Madrid. It was bought by the Galician City Council from a neighbor, Manuel Rojo, and was dismantled piece by piece -like the temple of Debod, for example- and moved in two trucks to the Barrio del Pilar. The day of the inauguration was attended by the mayors of both cities: Ramón País Romero, from Corcubión, and Miguel Ángel García-Lomas, from Madrid.
An icon of northern culture in Madrid
The utility of the hórreo -not necessarily this one- is to store food. At a height from the ground that separates it from depending on what kind of potential animal invaders, it serves to dry, cure and store cereals.
Asked about its history, the Urban History Group of the Barrio del Pilar tells Madrid Secreto: “Since the day of its inauguration it has remained in the original location and, except for an “oKupación” that occurred in 2013 by some young people from the Barrio who used it as a warehouse, it has not suffered damage” -which is in itself a rather ironic exercise.
Today it remains in Corcubion square, between cars, in a median, and surrounded by buildings of relatively overwhelming heights, but well preserved. Without breakage. And its presence there can almost be interpreted as a round trip between Galicia and Madrid: if the old Gran Vía pavilion is in O Porriño (Pontevedra), it almost makes sense that this hórreo is in Madrid.