Calle de la Flor Alta

Malasaña·Universidad

The name comes from the gardens and orchards of the estate that García de Barrionuevo de Peralta owned on the land later occupied by Plaza de los Mostenses. The ground had two levels: flowers grown on the higher part were called “high” by neighbours, and those on the lower part “low.” When the estate was sold and streets opened, the two topographic adjectives survived as street names. The street already appears as “Flor Alta” on Texeira’s 1656 map.

Calle de la Flor Alta links Calle de los Libreros with the junction of San Bernardo and Gran Vía, in the Universidad district. It measures only a few metres, little more than a passage between two larger arteries. It was not always so short: the Flor Alta and the Flor Baja were born as a single street, split first by Calle Ancha de San Bernardo and then, in the 1930s, by the Gran Vía. Its great protagonist is the Altamira Palace, today home to the European Institute of Design. In 1772 Ventura Rodríguez designed it for the Count of Altamira with the ambition of filling the whole block, but the dream was left half-done: only the front facing Flor Alta was built. The palace was never finished; it fell into ruin and was still declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1977, until the IED bought and restored it in 2004. Under Franco the street was briefly called de Federico Balart; in 1941 it recovered its old flower name.

Its names

  • Calle la Flor1656
  • Calle de la Flor Altac. 1656 – c. 1939
  • Calle de Federico Balartc. 1939 – 1941
  • Calle de la Flor Alta1941 – hoy
Sources (9)

Crossings