Madrid No Frills

History

Portrait of Madrid’s Royal Botanical Garden workers

6 November 2023

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid turned 278 this year, and has become a living museum with over 5,500 living species. Since its founding, it's also been a centre for scientific research with a vast library of over a million flora samples which are constantly being exchanged with other research centres across the globe.

Culture

ASÍ SOY YO! Kids’ photography project in Barrio San Cristobal celebrates ‘selfie’ expression

31 October 2023

All photos in this exhibition were taken by the children using eight second-hand pocket digital cameras from around the turn of the millennium. For many of the children, aged between six and 13 years old, this was the first time they had ever seen one of these cameras, which brought an extra level of magic to the whole photography process.

Culture

Villa de Vallekas Fiestas in photos: fried food, fairground rides and stormy nights

15 September 2023

After the hottest summer on record, the skies are filled with constant lightning and the fiesta grounds are intermittently flooding. But nothing can stop the smoke machines pluming into the neon lights of the fairground rides, or the pounding of reggaeton while families and friends bump each other on the dodgem dance floor. Here's a snapshot of the summer fiestas in Villa de Vallekas.

Environment

Madrid’s DANA disaster shows why weather warnings require trust

7 September 2023

A DANA (a mass of high-altitude cold air mixes with warm humid air from the Mediterranean) hit Spain yesterday, affecting Madrid and Toledo the worst. Emergency services responded to around 1,500 incidents of people trapped in their cars and homes, which left two people dead and two more missing.

Let's Talk

It’s Spain’s historic and widespread feminist movements that caused the Rubiales case to explode

30 August 2023

If it weren’t for the Spanish people taking to the streets and social media, creating new chants and slogans, Rubiales would never have hit the headlines and the newspapers would surely have moved on by now.

Environment

New study reveals Madrid has the worst Urban Heat Island Effect

23 August 2023

Urban Heat Snapshot (UHS), a research project by Arup university, studied and compared the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) of six major cities: Cairo, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mumbai and New York. Results revealed that out of all six cities, Madrid’s UHIE was the most extreme.

Environment

‘No a la Tala!’: As Madrid’s mass tree felling begins, residents are fighting back

26 July 2023

On Monday, less than 24 hours after the election in which we saw the right lose nationally, the same right-wing-run city council began preparations for works on Calle Áncora to expand Madrid’s metro network. These works come at the sacrifice of over 1000 mature trees, which residents are strongly resisting.

Environment

Pool drama brings Madrid’s climate crisis to the surface

20 July 2023

Pool tickets go on sale online 49 hours before doors open. Within two or three minutes, all 585 tickets to the city centre’s only public outdoor pool, Peñuelas, are gone. Over the past few weeks, a conspiracy theory grew that a few people were monopolising tickets, booking them quickly and then selling them off to their friends. The theory appeared partly true when a 400-strong neighbourhood WhatsApp group called ‘Peñuelas pool’ hit the headlines, with members being called a “mafia of families”.

Environment

Madrid’s climate inequality: temperature readings reveal 15-degree difference between rich and poor barrios

10 July 2023

A group of local activists launched the citizens’ initiative #termometrada on Saturday with the aim of regularly reading temperatures in 169 locations around Madrid. Measurements will be taken at various times of the day: at sunrise, two hours after sunset, and at 5pm, when heat peaks across the city. Readings are taken electronically, at head-height and in the shade. After several minutes, the reading will settle and can be recorded.

Let's Talk

Concha’s killing shakes Lavapiés and raises urgent questions around police objectives

4 July 2023

Yesterday afternoon, our neighbour Concha was attacked and killed in her clothing shop, Vistebien, on Plaza Tirso de Molina. The 61-year-old grandmother-to-be was stabbed in her abdomen by a man presumed to be attempting to rob her.

History

Brand-new museum celebrates Madrid as the only European capital with Islamic origins

29 June 2023

Madrid’s new Museum of Royal Collections has unexpectedly become home to the most significant Muslim heritage site in the city. Next month, the King and Queen of Spain will unveil a recently rediscovered section of the founding settlement of Madrid – the oldest known part of the 9th-century Islamic wall.

History

‘Pateras: the shame of Europe’: Barbate Port exhibits collection of abandoned migrant boats

26 June 2023

In 2018, the small port of Barbate in Cádiz hosted an eerie exhibition of disused pateras (small boats). The Town Hall’s plan was to raise public awareness around the phenomenon of irregular immigration and the human drama for people who risk their lives to cross the Strait.

Let's Talk

The Melilla Massacre one year on

24 June 2023

As of today, 70 people are still missing, 22 remain in the Nador morgue and at least 37 were killed. Even though the Guardia Civil claimed to have had blood-soaked uniforms during the incident, none of them were harmed.

Let's Talk

A brief history of Spain’s slave trade via Callejón de los Negros, Cádiz

13 June 2023

We don’t know for sure what the origin of the famous Callejón de los Negros (Alley of the Blacks) is, but from the port, this street is the closest access route into the historic centre of Cádiz, and therefore was perhaps the main street through which slaves would commute.

Housing

Ley Vivienda: Spain’s new housing law summarised

20 May 2023

The Ley de Vivienda is a brand-new housing law, the first of its kind in Spain, created by the current government. It is Podemos candidate Alejandra Jacinto who pushed for this law and who is hoping, if voted for, to have the powers to enforce it in the Comunidad de Madrid.