Calle de Pablo Aranda

The name of this street pays tribute to an architect called Pablo Aranda. The street took it in 1933, when it was opened on land carved out of an old country estate and the heights of Serrano were beginning to fill with villas and gardens. Of Aranda himself almost nothing has come down: no reliable record survives of his dates, his works or the exact reason for the dedication. The history that is documented is that of the district around the street. Between 1934 and 1936, on these same hills, Rafael Bergamín built the El Viso estate: more than two hundred single-family houses of straight lines and white volumes, one of the cleanest Rationalist ventures in Republican Madrid. Whoever walks Pablo Aranda today crosses one of the most sought-after areas of the city, with the architect’s surname on the plaque and his biography left blank.