Calle Berna
The street takes its name from Bern, Switzerland’s federal city and seat of government since 1848. It belongs to the Parque de las Avenidas development, promoted by CIOHSA and authorized by Madrid City Council in July 1956, where architects Echenique Gómez and Calvo Huedo named streets and squares after cities beginning with B.
Calle Berna comes from a geographical whim: when architects Echenique Gómez and Calvo Huedo laid out the Parque de las Avenidas in the late 1950s, they named its streets after European cities beginning with B. So came Bruselas, Bonn, Bolonia, Burdeos, Biarritz, Berlín and, of course, Berna. The map gives away the seams of the scheme: it claimed to list European capitals, yet Boston is neither a capital nor European.
The neighbourhood grew over the old market gardens of La Guindalera. The developer CIOHSA obtained municipal permission in July 1956 and built, in two phases, some 3,000 homes in blocks of five to ten storeys.
Among so many repeated initials, one exception breaks the game: the Plaza de Venecia. Berna, by contrast, has stood on its corner since the first signs went up, never once changing its name. It is there for the letter it starts with.