Calle de José Marañón

The man who gives this street its name worked with blueprints and scaffolding. José Marañón y Gómez-Acebo was born in Santander in 1850 and qualified as an architect in 1875, just as Madrid was starting to spill beyond its old limits. He designed houses for well-off families and, without charging a penny, the Santa Cruz orphanage-school in Carabanchel. His best-remembered commission was the Red Cross Hospital on Avenida de la Reina Victoria. When work began there was almost nothing around it: it was one of the first buildings to rise there. Marañón died in Madrid in 1900 without seeing it finished. The surname rings a bell for another, more famous Marañón: José was the uncle of the physician and essayist Gregorio Marañón. The street’s tribute, however, looks to the architect, and it runs between Manuel Silvela and Santa Engracia, in the heart of Trafalgar.