Plaza de José de Villareal

Behind this square in Chopera stands a man who ran the works of Madrid when the city was still being built. José de Villarreal learned the trade alongside Juan Gómez de Mora, and when the master died he inherited his post as Master Builder of the City, the office that decided how the streets, bridges and convents of the capital grew. His signature remains in places still walked today: he directed the rebuilding of the puente de Segovia over the Manzanares and took charge of the chapel of San Isidro, raised to hold the farmer saint who is Madrid’s patron. He died in 1662 with that chapel half finished. The man who ordered so much of the stone of Habsburg Madrid is remembered in a modest square in the south.