The cliché never goes away that Madrid built its modernity by always looking north, the city’s mayor, toward the new financial districts and their reflective towers. But the city, our city, learned to look up long ago, into the heart of the bustling Gran Via … . There, where tourists now do gymnastics on Instagram and shop windows display footballers’ underwear, and there, among remote cinemas and velvet cabarets, Madrid’s first skyscrapers rose.
I’m talking about the Telefonica Building and the Capitol Building. The Telefonica Building, opened in 1930, was the first Spanish skyscraper, and a statement of intent. Madrid longed for a modern, connected and cosmopolitan city. In its shadow a few years later the Capitol added Art Deco charm, completing the street’s most famous curve, as well as a bright sign on the facade where Rosalía stands today. The two famous buildings constitute a before and after history in the city, not because of their very modest height, if we look at the towers to the north, but because of their pioneering case of breaking the horizontal profile.
But the example did not flourish in the area, despite the construction of the Spain Building and the Tower of Madrid. The center’s two monuments evoke an unrelenting sadness and nostalgia for what was not, even because they are the outstanding example of modernity that succeeded, but was quickly thwarted. In any case, one sees that Gran Via, in general, looks towards New York, with a lot of vitola buildings, with the memory of the street that was once home to cinemas and today is realized in the hustle and bustle of digital stores where there is not even a need for a cashier.
There is something of an ancient, almost secret, melody now, if we look at the Telefónica, or the Mayor, or the Capitol, because it is not just architecture, but memory, a remnant of the past that promised the whole future. Suddenly Madrid’s sprawling cafés took over the growth of the skyscraper, Mayor, right there on the Avenue of Power where the mezzanine was always more important than the dome. Today the skyline is dominated by glass and steel towers, but the first pulse of that portent still beats on the Gran Via.