Calle Juan de la Cierva

The name honours Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu (Murcia, 1895), a civil engineer who as a child already built flying models. The crash of a plane of his own, which fell when it lost speed, pushed him to seek a safer aircraft. So the autogyro was born, with rotating wings and near-vertical landing, forerunner of the helicopter. His first three prototypes failed through the rigidity of the rotor; by hinging the blades so they beat freely, the machine finally held its own. The first successful flight was at the Getafe aerodrome in early 1923 and, in 1929, one of these machines crossed the English Channel piloted by de la Cierva himself. He died in 1936 in an air accident near London. The street keeps a curiosity of its own. In 1940 it bore the name of the architect Gustavo Fernández Valbuena. In December 1956 the plaques of two streets were swapped, and this stretch —⁠between Serrano and Joaquín Costa⁠— came to be called Juan de la Cierva. Today it houses a CSIC chemistry institute.