Calle Reyes Magos

The street takes its name from the wise men of the East in the account of Matthew 2, travellers guided by a star to Bethlehem who offer the child Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. The Gospel does not call them kings or name them; their identification as three kings with proper names is a tradition fixed between the 6th and 8th centuries. The name is part of the biblical-Christmas cycle that the architect José Antonio Domínguez Salazar devised for the neighbourhood promoted by Inmobiliaria Urbis S.A. from 1947.

Calle de los Reyes Magos belongs to Madrid’s Niño Jesús neighbourhood, southeast of the Retiro, an estate the Urbis property company began to build in 1947 on land that then lay at the edge of the city. The project was signed by the architect José Antonio Domínguez Salazar, and the work stretched over decades in three rounds. What sets this neighbourhood apart is that its streets tell a story. Around the Plaza del Niño Jesús, the names trace the cycle of the Nativity: Nazaret, Jericó, Portal de Belén, Anunciación, Samaria and, finally, Reyes Magos. The order is no accident. This street closes the tale, because the wise men of the East reach the manger once the child is already born. The neighbourhood’s name came before the houses. The Duchess of Santoña founded the Hospital del Niño Jesús in January 1877 and, in December 1881, installed it in a new building by Francisco Jareño y Alarcón, at Menéndez Pelayo 65, where it still cares for patients today.

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