MNF > History

History

Categories

El Alamín: The utopian ghost town on the outskirts of Madrid

El Alamín, meaning 'the world' in Arabic, is an abandoned village on the outskirts of Madrid. A walk along the three streets of El Alamín reveals the world that a pro-Franco solider intended to build there in 1956. Juan Claudio Güell y Churruca, also known as the fourth Marquis de Comillas, fought on the national side during the Spanish Civil War. His militant legacy influenced the utilitarian architecture and planning of El Alamín: it's of a communist-style with a touch of Christianity, established to populate tobacco and cotton farmers.
Categories

The secret street stickers of Madrid’s people

Madrid-based writer and artist Lauren Klarfeld combines her love for the streets of Madrid with the people who walk them, and in this article, she reveals her secret project, Last Words For The Road.
Categories

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.
Categories

Seven secrets of Retiro Park

There's a bunker, a hidden chess club, a haunting forest and a forgotten city-centre zoo, among a few other secrets held by the gatekeeper of Retiro Park. But dive in with the darkest, most disturbing secret of all: the 'human zoo'...
Categories

The inspiring wartime art of bomb-proofing windows

Futurism had a mini renaissance during the Spanish Civil War. The traditionally fascist art movement was briefly revived in an unexpected and ironic manner: to protect the people from the fallout of General Francisco Franco's air raids. 
Categories

Haunting map of Madrid’s forgotten bunkers reveals Western Front

The sun is setting and I've spotted some wild rabbits – their white flickering tails really give them away. They're in an old trench digging diagonally into the pebbly soil, but possess no knowledge or concern over the possibility that they might be nesting alongside dismembered skeletons.
Categories

Map of bombed Madrid reveals a city secretly scarred

Enrique Bordes and Luis de Sobrón, creators of the map Madrid Bombardeado 1936-1939, are part of a growing movement to expose the lost stories of the Spanish Civil War. They're tracking down our city's hidden wounds and opening them back up in the hope that by redressing them properly, they can finally heal. 
Categories

Artist brings the Spanish Civil War back to the streets of Madrid

Hell's bitter winds have suddenly reversed and the darkest visions of the Spanish Civil War have drifted back onto the streets of Madrid. And for this, we can thank Chicago-born artist Sebastian Maharg, who has made it possible for us to remember what many of us never even saw.
A 3D model of an old bag, wicker and hemp shop on Cava Baja
Categories

A miniature ode to Madrid’s disappearing antique facades

Recent exhibition La Tienda de la Esquina (The Corner Shop) celebrates Madrid's beautiful antique facades. But, given these old shops are an increasingly endangered species in the Madrid streetscape, you may find yourself cynically wondering if these sculptures are actually miniature death masks.
Categories

15 Madrid jobs that no longer exist

From river launderettes and crucifix carpenters to streetlamp lighters and tinsmiths – in just the last few decades, countless jobs that had existed for centuries have disappeared.  Let's take a glimpse of these lost trades and professions, because there's a lot we can see in what no longer exists.