El Viso

Before the colony, this was high country north of Madrid, of threshing floors and paths beside the old racecourse. Around 1934, under the shelter of the Casas Baratas law, a cooperative raised housing here for workers and civil servants. The architect Rafael Bergamín made them white, of straight lines and with a garden. But what was intended for humble people ended up in the hands of the well-off, and the little villas turned luxurious. If Castellana comes from castillos (castles), El Viso is where they could best be divisados (descried). Almost all the streets bear the name of a river. The Ebro, the Tajo, the Guadalquivir —⁠from the Arabic wād al-kabír, “the great river”⁠—⁠, the Darro that crosses Granada, and several Basque and Navarrese rivers: Arga, Bidasoa, Urumea, Oria. To these are added a few writers and painters: the novelist Armando Palacio Valdés, Concha Espina —⁠several times a candidate for the Nobel⁠— and the painter Gutiérrez Solana. There are also explorers: the Pinzón brothers, who commanded two caravels in 1492; Pedro de Valdivia, who founded Santiago de Chile; or the Galician Loriga, who flew from Madrid to Manila by autogyro. To the south lies the Santiago Bernabéu stadium. And here, among so many river names, none flows.