Plaza de España

The name is a direct tribute to Spain, fixed around 1912 on a plot that had changed its face many times. Before it was called this, this corner at the end of the Gran Vía was orchard and farmland, then the Leganitos meadow and, for decades, Plaza de San Marcial. Charles III had authorized a Franciscan convent there, San Gil, which ended up turned into barracks: first it housed Joseph Bonaparte’s French troops, then Spanish cavalry and artillery. The wrecking crews came between 1908 and 1909, and once the barracks were cleared the great emptiness remained, which the city renamed after the nation. From that scheme came, in 1929, the monument to Cervantes, with the writer seated in stone and, at his feet, the bronze figures of Don Quixote and Sancho. High above, five female figures represent the five continents reading the novel. Later came the two hulks that still dominate the skyline: the Edificio España and the Torre de Madrid, the tallest concrete skyscraper in Europe when it was finished in the 1950s.