Plaza de la América Española

The square is named after the concept of “América Española” (Spanish America), the standard term in Spanish institutions of the early 20th century for the Spanish-American republics as a whole. Madrid’s City Council registered it on 26 March 1924, at the height of the Hispano-American policy of Primo de Rivera’s Military Directorate.

Some squares are born already named. Plaza de la América Española is one of them: the municipal street register enters it on 26 March 1924, with no trace of any earlier name. It was created and christened in the same act, deep in the Salamanca district, beside the Fuente del Berro. The streets around it came first, between 1887 and 1898, in the first wave of the Ensanche Este development. The square took three more decades to take shape, as the neighbourhood finished closing its grid with the Colonias Iturbe. The curious part lies in those two words on the sign. Around 1924, “América Española” was how the country’s institutions referred to the Spanish-speaking republics, and behind it ran a lively debate: some defended that name against “Latin America,” others preferred “Hispano-America” or “Ibero-America.” The date of the sign is no accident: it fits the Hispano-American programme of the Directorate, which that October held the Fiesta de la Raza at the Teatro Real.

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