Madrid in the Modern Age
16th century
Under the reign of Philip II, in 1561, Madrid was named capital and from that moment on it experienced a progressive increase in the population whose spatial capacity could not support; It went from 20,000 to 60,000 inhabitants. It was for this reason that the city grew in a chaotic manner, full of narrow and laid out streets, with sanitation and sewage in a terrible state.
However, at this same time, within the Community, it is worth highlighting the construction of the Monastery of El Escorial, as well as the Segovia Bridge over the Manzanares River and the unification of two streets that formed the Calle Mayor "Calle Mayor (Madrid)").
17th century
For a few years, Philip III moved the Court to Valladolid, although he soon returned to Madrid. The population of the capital continued its rapid growth, due to the emigration of Castilian noble families who were seeking an improvement in their economy and, in some cases, a certain influence at the Court.
Throughout this century, Madrid acquired more and more recognition while that of Seville continued to decline. So, both nobles and artists of the stature of Velázquez approached the emerging city in search of economic improvement.
As for the buildings, it was at the beginning of the century when the Plaza Mayor and El Retiro were built. The population exceeded 100,000 inhabitants, so the city had to be surrounded with a fourth wall.
18th century
In the first half of the century, the old Alcázar burned down, located where the Palacio de Oriente is today, so the Court had to move to the Buen Retiro Palace. To link it with the city, the fountains of Cibeles and Neptune "Fuente de Neptuno (Madrid)", the Puerta de Alcalá or the Casa de Correos were designed, already under the reign of Carlos III, following the guidelines of the Count of Aranda first and the Count of Floridablanca later. In this way, the jurisdictional powers of local power were diminished to the benefit of the Bourbon. With the help of his ministers, he took various measures to clean up the face of the capital, which suffered from high levels of crime and, as mentioned before, very poor sanitation. Among others, it is worth highlighting: the sewage plan to evacuate wastewater, the law that prohibited throwing garbage into the streets and the implementation of a collection service and the lighting and paving of the streets.
Due to certain changes in clothing customs, which aimed to reduce crime and make Madrid a more attractive city, and an increase in prices, the Esquilache Mutiny took place, which ended with the deportation of the minister of the same name who wanted to impose these reforms.
Although it is true that these changes to beautify the city were carried out, they practically only affected the palatial surroundings, leaving the population of the periphery overcrowded due to its constant growth: at the end of the century, Madrid had 190,000 inhabitants.
15th century
In the 19th century, Henry IV established the Jerónimos monastery on the banks of the Manzanares River. Later, during the reign of Elizabeth I, the friars requested to be relocated since the location next to the river was unhealthy due to the abundance of mosquitoes. It moves to the current location next to the Paseo del Prado. In this new monastery, rooms will be created for the kings to accommodate them when the court stops in Madrid. They will be called Cuarto Real and will be the seed of the future Buen Retiro Palace.
When Philip II made Madrid the capital of Spain, he agreed with the authorities of the town to establish a so-called Charge of Apartments") (which was not the same as the pre-existing royalty of apartments, since it was a permanent charge, not a temporary one) that the Madrid authorities agreed with the king, in exchange for him establishing the capital in Madrid. According to this charge, those who had a house with more than one floor would give up one of them to accommodate the large number of lower-ranking officials and courtiers who were to arrive at the brand new capital of an important empire. The city authorities thought about the economic advantages that the capital would bring, but the people of Madrid, not particularly happy, began to build what were called casas a la malicia, with a single floor, so as not to suffer the inconveniences of the Cargo. It would later be built (to the north to the so-called boulevards and to the east to the stream of the Castellana fountain, that is, the Paseo de Recoletos and El Prado) and which would last practically until the 19th century, while the city once again grew in height. This fence did not have defensive functions, but only fiscal ones, to force the entrances to the Villa to be made through the doors where the gate fee was charged.
The wider streets that lead to the Prado (Carrera de San Jerónimo, towards the Palacio del Buen Retiro and Atocha, towards the Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha) served as a "prestigious space" for the staging of processions and court parades. The planning of the Paseo del Prado in the time of Charles III responded to the same criteria, in addition to bringing together an extraordinary set of institutions from the Enlightenment program that sought to put Madrid at the scientific forefront. It determined the future road axis and urban expansion of Paseo de la Castellana.
For a few centuries the growth was contained in the old town, since the existence of the malice houses, once the burden of housing was over, allowed upward growth (giving rise, among other things, to the model of the corralas, well described by Madrid customs), until in the century the city council, promoted by private speculators (mainly the Marquis of Salamanca), began an ambitious urban expansion.
The general economic paralysis of the country in the century did not produce any appreciable change in the appearance of Madrid, which would not awaken again until the arrival of the Bourbon dynasty.
An important event for the urban evolution of the city occurred after the fire of the Alcázar in 1734. King Felipe V settled in the Buen Retiro Palace, which caused many nobles to build palaces nearby (Paseo del Prado, Paseo de la Fuente Castellana), timidly beginning an extension of the urban area established since the time of Felipe II.
Carlos III, who was called the best mayor of Madrid, urbanized the southern area of the capital as a future noble area, starting from the Atocha roundabout various avenues, such as the Paseo de los Ocho Hilos, de las Acacias and constructing in its vicinity a series of representative buildings such as the Cabinet of Natural History (current Prado Museum), he moved the botanist of Migas Calientes to the current location (Madrid Botanical Garden), he built the General Hospital (now the Reina Sofía Museum), the Royal Academy of Medicine, the Platería Martínez, the Astronomical Observatory.
19th century
The rapid expansion of the century happened so quickly that it left no room for the creation of plazas. At the beginning of the century, King José I, also not particularly fond of convents, dedicated himself to demolishing a few (Santo Domingo "Convento de Santo Domingo el Real (Madrid)"), Mostenses, Santa Bárbara) using the land to build plazas (which usually bear the name of the demolished convent), for which José earned the nickname "king Plazuelas". He also opened the Plaza de Oriente of the new Royal Palace, for which the people of Madrid thanked him by calling the street that crosses it Calle de Bailén, the first battle that the Napoleonic troops lost.
Beyond the boulevards that were opened when the old fence was demolished, the expansion project of the second half of the century designed by Carlos María de Castro was built. Limited to the north and east, up to the Paseo de Ronda "Paseo de Ronda (Madrid)"), it adopted the grid plan (maintaining the diagonal of the traditional path that is Alcalá Street), the plot in blocks that were expected to be of low density (later occupied to their last possibilities) and a historicist architectural style, with a predominance of exposed brick and lattice balconies, which give it a characteristic appearance. The southern and western areas are occupied by the "wedges" of railway penetration (Middle or Atocha and Norte or Príncipe Pío stations, which for many years were not connected, later the connection was made through Delicias "Paseo de las Delicias (Madrid)") to the south and east and the "laughter tunnel", Chamartín, Pitis and Las Rozas of Madrid to the north and west) and the industrial zone of the river area in the area of Legazpi "Legazpi (Madrid)") (Matadero). The road layout in that area is clearly radiocentric"), with intermediate grid zones.
In the areas that remain on the outskirts of the expansion (limited by a set of roads clearly octagonal in shape in the plan), spontaneous nuclei of more or less precarious self-construction homes are appearing on the access roads to the city. At the beginning of the century, Arturo Soria's Ciudad Lineal was planned in its northeastern area, which was the most ambitious project of a series of plans for suburban colonies, some with cheap houses and others with greater social prestige, generally in the form of small developments of single-family homes, which still exist in the form of "islands" in what today are in areas that have become very central to have such low density (El Viso, Cruz del Rayo, Prosperidad "Prosperidad (Madrid)")).
20th century
Since the end of the century, the historic center suffered specific alterations of some importance, the most significant intervention being the opening of the Gran Vía, which together with areas of Castellana (Nuevos Ministerios, AZCA) form "screen" axes that isolate on both sides areas of lower building height and narrower width of the road, in some cases degraded (aging of the traditional population, establishment of immigrant nuclei, illicit or irregular economic activities...) and currently subject to rehabilitation, sometimes tending towards tertiaryization (replacement of homes for tourist, commercial, administrative uses...) or replacement of homes with others of higher price, especially when the old ones were subject to the so-called "old rent")", beneficial to the tenant. The declaration of ruin, with the corresponding eviction, demolition and reconstruction provided notable capital gains to the owners. The real estate speculation that began in the last years of the Franco regime has not stopped until the currently, receiving discontinuous attention from public authorities through successive urban planning plans.
The current urban periphery corresponds to the space outside the "central almond" defined by the M-30, and which corresponds for the most part to the old municipalities absorbed after the Civil War. In addition to the historic centers of these towns, which logically can still be recognized in the fabric of the conurbation, the new residential areas created on the old agricultural land are: either shanty towns later rebuilt (El Pozo del Tío Raimundo); or planning areas from the 1950s (San Blas); or private developments of urban speculation from the 1970s (Barrio del Pilar), which have sometimes been described as "vertical shanty towns". The interstitial spaces are occupied by areas of productive use: industrial estates that progressively became obsolete, in the southern area and others (which usually receive the more elitist name of industrial and business parks) with greater projection today; Finally, the service areas (shopping centers, such as La Vaguada, designed by César Manrique) or public facilities (educational, sports, etc.), which in most cases had to make do with the scarce land that was left free of speculation...[1].
• - Annex: Maps of Madrid.
• - Near Philip II.
• - Near Philip IV.
• - The Rounds.
• - The Boulevards of Madrid.
• - Ensanche of Madrid.
• - Madrid's first ring road.
• - Second Madrid ring road.
• - Demographics of Madrid.
The historical spatial evolution of Madrid can be visualized with plans commented on the web pages:
• - Historical Madrid.
• - Medieval walls Archived November 20, 2017 at the Wayback Machine.