Calle de Gustavo Fernández Balbuena

Gustavo Fernández Balbuena was born in Madrid in 1888 and worked as an architect and town planner. He founded and edited the magazine Arquitectura in 1918, built apartment blocks on Serrano, Miguel Ángel and Almagro, and, from the city council, took part in the plans to extend the city during the 1920s. His work aimed to order Madrid’s growth: green spaces, carefully studied layouts, lower density against the overcrowding of the centre. He designed a linear park along the banks of the Manzanares and organised the First National Congress of Urban Planning in 1926. His book Trazado de ciudades appeared in 1931, after his death. In November of that same year, on a crossing to Palma de Mallorca, he vanished at sea off the coast of Andratx. He was forty-three.