Calle de Granada
The street takes its name from Granada, capital of the Andalusian province of the same name. It was laid out during the urbanisation of the Pacífico district in the last quarter of the 19th century, within the southern expansion of Madrid approved by the Castro Plan of 1860. The district’s street names combine Spanish place names with historical figures tied to 19th-century Spain: alongside this one run those of Narciso Serra (playwright), Sánchez Barcaiztegui (naval officer) and Cavanilles (botanist).
The Pacífico district was laid out between 1875 and 1885, in the stretch running from the old Valencia road to the Ronda de Vallecas. The survey drawn up by Ibáñez de Íbero already sketched the beginning of the calle de Granada as the area began filling with homes and workshops. The name honours the Andalusian city and fits the expansion’s mixed criterion, where the place names of Spanish cities lived alongside streets dedicated to figures of the age.
The building that most defines this street stands at number 16. Ricardo Velázquez Bosco designed it in 1884 for the photographic firm of J. Laurent y Cía, a Neo-Mudéjar structure of pressed brick that housed a gallery, workshops, a laboratory and the family home. Laurent himself died there in 1886. The City Council bought the building in 1946 and turned it into the Francisco de Quevedo state school.
The origin of the name Granada is still debated. The explanation that convinces most today traces it to the deep-red colour of the earth with which the first fortifications were built, the same root said to beat in the Alhambra.
Sources (5)
- Arte en Madrid — Jean Laurent y Ricardo Velázquez Bosco
- Miradas de Madrid — El edificio destinado a estudio y laboratorio en el siglo XIX (Calle de Granada 16, Pacífico)
- Miradas de Madrid — Recorrido por el barrio de Pacífico
- Pocklington, R. — La etimología del topónimo «Granada» (Al-Qantara, 1988)
- Xataka Foto — El último estudio fotográfico de Jean Laurent