Calle Aizgorri
The street takes its name from the historical variant Aizgorri/Aitzgorri of the Basque place name Aizkorri, a mountain range in southern Gipuzkoa whose summit reaches 1,528 m. The name combines haitz (crag) and gorri (red) or korri (bare), depending on the source. It belongs to the northern-geography naming pattern of the Fuente del Berro neighborhood, tied to the Navarrese developer Gregorio Iturbe Aldalur.
If a tourist looks for the origin of calle Aizgorri, they have to look far north, to the Aizkorri-Aratz range in southern Gipuzkoa: the highest mountain complex in the Basque Country, with peaks brushing 1,550 meters.
The name hides a quarrel of etymologies. The standard form in Basque is Aizkorri, but the variant Aizgorri carries centuries of documentation. A dictionary from 1802 translated it as “red crag,” for the reddish tone of the limestone; another reading points to korri, bare or naked, which fits the karst landscape of the massif. Red or bare, depending on whom you ask.
The street was born far from those summits. The Fuente del Berro neighborhood grew from 1926 on the grounds of the old estate, thanks to the cooperative run by Gregorio Iturbe Aldalur, born in Ituren, Navarre. Its streets filled with rivers and peaks of the peninsula’s north, and calle Aizgorri is one of those transplanted place names.
Sources (5)
- Sierra de Aizkorri — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Aizkorri — Lugares — EODA (Euskaltzaindia)
- La casa de Aizgorri — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Gregorio Iturbe, el promotor de las principales colonias jardín de Madrid — casarural.madrid
- Colonias históricas madrileñas. Fuente del Berro (Colonia Iturbe 1) — Arte en Madrid