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Sprucing Up Madrid
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20314 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1992 |
1,201 Words |
| Author
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Marcus Binney
Marcus Binney, is president of Save Britain's Heritage. |
In preparation for its role as Cultural Capital of Europe this year, Madrid is a city transformed. In a little more than ten years, thousands of old buildings have been cleaned and repainted, with results at least as startling as the great stone-cleaning program initiated in Paris by de Gaulle more than a quarter of a century ago.
Where France's capital was revealed as a city of uniformly creamy stone, Madrid glows in pastel colors: lemon yellows, satin blues, dove gray, mushroom pink, and avocado green.
Twenty years ago, Madrid was one of the grimmest of European cities--the newsstands didn't even try to sell postcards. Every city block was coated in a poisonous cocktail of soot, carbon dioxide, and bird droppings. Part of the sensation today is the contrast. Brightly painted turn of the century hotels, apartment blocks, banks, and offices stand immediately next to still-blackened neighbors awaiting treatment.
Because of the dirt, people largely shut their eyes to the fin de siècle architecture of the city; as a result, Barcelona attracted all the plaudits. Yet the late Victorian and Edwardian architecture of Madrid is remarkably rich and inventive.
The Madrilenes could afford the best in the construction of their city, as in Paris' Seizième, the Côte d'Azur, Geneva, or Lausanne. No expense was spared on the frills: Sculptured ornaments, elaborate balconies, and fanciful ironwork abound. Large ornamental panels of tiles and mosaics add further richness. Details from doors to domes are elaborately gilded.
Many of the flourishes are concentrated on the skyline--on gables, dormers, finials, and urns. Madrid's plan, a grid overlaid with diagonals, varied by occasional circles and crescents, makes for wonderful corner buildings crowned with tempiettos, turrets, and every kind of dome: spherical or conical, flat as berets or bulbous as onions.
This was an age so varied and eclectic in ornament and motifs that each building needs its own stylistic label--Jugendstil Baroque, Parisian Grand Opera, Monte Carlo Imperial, Liberty Rococo.
Attractive Hues
In the Gran Vía, the Residence Miami is painted in butter yellow, with windows and shutters picked out in
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