MNF > Articles by: Madrid No Frills

Madrid No Frills

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Madrid’s poorest neighbourhoods are still condemned by their ancient invisible borders

Zoom out of Madrid on Google satellite view and red clusters begin to emerge. Between grey, gridded avenues and barren parks, see clusters of winding narrow streets with red roof tiles and tiny plazas, which were once independent towns with their own culture, economy and architecture. Today, even though they lie well within the city limits of Madrid, they remain different.
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Pilgrimage to El Coleccionista: Lavapiés’ iconic comic book store

Down Calle Tribulete, just a few minutes from Plaza Lavapiés is Cómics El Coleccionista, where it has stood seemingly forever. Opened in 1993 by a pair of friends who met each other through their mutual love of comic books, El Coleccionista has remained virtually unchanged throughout its 27 years of existence.
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A homage to Madrid’s Chinese corner shops

A year ago, my photo series of 100 of Madrid's no-frills bars reignited the nation's love for a time-honoured aspect of Spanish culture, but around 20 of these no-frills bars are actually Chinese-owned.
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Welcome to Blyth, the underdog of North East England

I'd like to transport you to a place a few miles up the road from where I grew up. It's a tiny, windswept port town that had its heyday up until the 1960s. After that, the industries shifted outwards, like the dunes that shield Blyth from the North Sea, switching from mining coal to farming wind. 
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Spotlight on Plaza Nelson Mandela: the heart and the underbelly of Lavapiés

I'm sitting on a concrete bench on Plaza Nelson Mandela, taking in the warm winter sun on my face. A local Senegalese man wearing an ivory silk boubou pours his friends cups of hot black coffee from a canister. On a bench near them, a group of young Argentinians top up their cups of mate and share a smoke.
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The battle for Baobab

Yesterday, the people of Madrid make their thoughts crystal clear: don't evict Baobab! So far, this emotive Instagram post has been shared by 2,793 people in their stories, and viewed by 32,557. To put things in perspective, that's about 10 times more people than my average Madrid No Frills Instagram posts.
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The secret lives of the Cañada kids

This summer, children living in Sector 6 of the Cañada Real (Europe's largest shanty town, just a 15-minute drive from Madrid) were given disposable cameras by photographer Carlos Gutiérrez, who asked them to take pictures of their day-to-day lives.
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The prettiest little no-frills bar in Tetuán

Where I'm from, little buildings like this that look very different from those around them tell us where a bomb fell during WW2. Many pubs were destroyed during the war but new pubs were quickly erected (priorities) and they look a lot like Casa 42.
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Parallel worlds: saving Buenos Aires’ no-frills bars

Earlier this year, I discovered that I had a long-lost twin in Buenos Aires: Bar de Viejes. This is an Instagram account that was born out of a desire of one person to document the beautiful old Buenos Aires bars, especially those that are under-appreciated and disappearing.
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A brief guide to Spain (written under Franco)

In 1965, Spain's tourism board published a handbook to Spain. It would become a highly collectable item of Franco's 'Visit Spain' campaign – one of the dictator's lasting legacies, seeding the mass tourism we're so familiar with today.