We all know what a monument is until you have to narrow down what does and doesn’t fit the definition. Among the most important monuments of Madrid we could include the Almudena Cathedral or even a public square such as the Plaza Mayor or the Puerta del Sol, which due to its historical value would fall within the parameters determined by the RAE. But leaving aside great buildings, this article concentrates on the public works that give character to the capital -either for what they represent or for their history- and without which this city would not be understood.
1. Cibeles
The monument of Madrid that is best known outside our borders is the fountain located at the intersection of Calle de Alcalá and Paseo de Recoletos: the Cibeles. Soccer, specifically Real Madrid’s celebrations, have given that international character to a neoclassical work representing the mother goddess of the Greek gods.
Charles III, the king nicknamed “the mayor of Madrid”, decided to beautify the city and commissioned the architect Ventura Rodriguez in the eighteenth century some of the buildings and monuments that we now understand as icons of the capital. The Cibeles was designed next to the fountain of Neptune and the fountain of Apollo to decorate the Paseo del Prado, which housed the then Gabinete de Ciencias Naturales, now Museo del Prado.
In addition to the fountain, the square has some of the most monumental palaces of the city: the Buenavista Palace (Army Headquarters), the Linares Palace (Casa de America), the Palace of Communications (formerly the headquarters of the Post Office and currently the Mayor’s Office of Madrid) and the Bank of Spain.
An interesting fact is that there is a replica in Mexico City that the former mayor Enrique Tierno Galván gave as a symbol of the twinning between the two capitals.
2. Puerta de Alcalá
The gates for Madrid are like the triumphal arches for Rome or Paris, no one passes through them anymore, but they still remind us of a glorious past. This monument in Madrid is located at the intersection of Alcalá Street and Alfonso XII Street, welcoming the Retiro Park and a few meters from the Cibeles.
The gate, in neoclassical style, was built by order of Charles III, in another attempt to make Madrid less of an important city villa and more capital. It was built between 1769 and 1778 as one of the five royal gates that gave access to the city of Madrid. It was commissioned to the Italian architect Francesco Sabatini -also the author of the gardens surrounding the Royal Palace.
3. The Visigothic kings of the Plaza de Oriente
It seems hard to look at anything other than the Royal Palace in the Plaza de Oriente, but the sculpture walk through the Napoleonic gardens on both sides also catches the eye. The apollonian statues represent the Castilian kings, from Alfonso VI to Fernando the Catholic. Although the statues are popularly known as “the Visigothic kings”, in reality there are only 5 of the 33 who ruled the peninsula.
Fernando VII ordered the construction of these statues in the middle of the 18th century under the direction of the Court sculptors Domenico Oliveiri and Felipe de Castro. A total of 94 were made, of which 28 are in the gardens and the rest in the grounds of the Royal Palace.
4. Ursa and strawberry tree
The symbol of Madrid is the bear and the strawberry tree, probably the most photographed statue of the capital -not counting the Cibeles- and yet the history of its connection with the city is not well known and the truth is that it is somewhat diffuse.
The debate is first on whether is a bear or a bear and, secondly, why it represents the city. According to the municipal website Patrimonio y Paisaje, the origin could date back to the time of Alfonso VIII, when the inhabitants of the Villa carried on their flag a “bear or bear in the form of a passerby with seven stars on its back”. Another of the best known is that the bear is a nod to the constellation Ursa Minor, hence the seven stars also present in the flag of the Community of Madrid.
Arbutus trees, on the other hand, grow easily in any green space and their edible fruits give a red touch to autumn in Madrid. So at least the tree is well chosen.
Be that as it may, in the 1960s, the Madrid City Council filed a brief requesting not only that the figure of the bear and the strawberry tree be recovered for the city’s coat of arms, but also that it be conceived as a monument “to be installed in some emblematic place in the capital, a popular symbol for tourists.” And since then, although it has passed through several locations within the Puerta del Sol, the bear and the strawberry tree are what the Capitoline wolf is to Rome, albeit somewhat less epic.
5. Temple of Debod
As temples can also be monuments, we could not miss the Egyptian Suite of more than 2000 years old that is exhibited in an open-air park in the heart of Madrid. The Temple of Debod is a gift from the Government of Egypt to Spain after its collaboration in the archaeological rescue of the temples of the Nubian Valley organized by UNESCO. The integrity of these were in danger due to the flooding of the Aswan Dam and this was the one that Spain chose and moved stone by stone in 1972 to this point of the capital.
The Madrid City Council is considering put a cover on it the deterioration of the monument due to its exposure to the inclemency of the weather has been attested.
6. Monument to Cervantes
The Plaza de España has undergone many reforms to reach its current state, but since 1930 the monument to Cervantes has remained almost intact. And this almost has importance because since 1915 when Alfonso XIII opened a contest to make this tribute to the writer until it was finished in 1960, elements were added to modify it.
The winners of the competition were the architects Rafael Martínez Zapatero and Pedro Muguruza and the sculptor Lorenzo Coullaut Valera. Work began in 1925 and in 1929 the fountain was inaugurated with the figure of Cervantes in bronze and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza at the base. Crowning the sculpture is a world ball representing the expansion of the Spanish language. But with the Civil War the work was left unfinished and work was not resumed until 1950. The son of the sculptor who made the main sculptures, Federico Coullaut-Valera, then added the side figures of Aldonza and Dulcinea.
7. The fallen angel of the Retiro
The most controversial, or most surprising, monument is that of the Fallen Angel. A romantic sculpture dedicated to the devil located in the heart of El Retiro Park. The work may seem somewhat shocking for the time (1877) and for the context (representing Spain at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878), but Romanticism was in full swing. Although it is a representation of Lucifer, when Ricardo Bellver created the sculpture during his stay in Rome, his intention was not to praise, but to reflect the weakness of the character.
The sculpture attracted the attention of connoisseurs from the outset and received the First Class Medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts a year before being exhibited in Paris. In the French capital, the critics, such as Lamarre and Louis-Lande, also liked it, describing it as “overwhelming”.