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Living Museums

Living Museums

La Calima: photos of the day Saharan sand carpeted Madrid

16 March 2022

Overnight, Storm Celia dragged a blanket of Saharan dust as fine as powdered makeup to the Spanish peninsula. Everything from snowy mountains and skyscrapers to streets and cars are covered in a layer of red dust. Look into the near distance and see a red haze (calima) settle into the horizon. This is the densest and most abundant Saharan calima in Spain’s living memory and lasted three days.

Living Museums

Preserving Tetuán’s Neomudejar workers’ housing

3 December 2021

The creators of the grand and ornate red-brick buildings you can find all around Madrid are the same architects, builders and brick merchants who built the pretty little casas bajas in the barrios of Tetuán, Vallecas and Carabanchel. Look closely at Las Ventas bullring, one of Madrid’s most famous examples of Moorish Revival architecture, and find the same intricate brickwork decorating little houses all around Madrid.

Living Museums

The story of a no-frills Gran Vía Hotel run by 81-year-old Delfina from Galicia

27 May 2021

Gran Via number 12, a splendid white building dating back to 1914, has seen many things in its 107 years of history, including the Spanish Civil War. But, at ground level lives the legendary Bar Chicote, once crowned the best in the world by MTV in 2004. Its bar top has seated a long list of personalities including Ernest Hemingway, Sofia Loren and Salvador Dalí, as well as royalty, sports, politics and intellectualism.

Living Museums

The House of Suitcases

4 December 2020

“Is it busy out there?” asks Isabelle, owner of La Casa de Maletas in El Rastro. That day was the first day of the Rastro for eight months, since the pandemic shut Europe’s largest open-air flea market down in the second week of March.

Living Museums

Madrid’s Human Beehive

26 October 2020

During lockdown, the nightly applause for healthcare workers here must have been epic. Thousands of people opened their windows onto their wide, windy boulevards and, for a few minutes, clapped as one giant entity within Spain’s biggest human beehive.

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