Plaza de Raffaella Carrà

Whoever looks for this square will find not an esplanade but a widening of the pavement on calle Fuencarral, in front of numbers 43 and 45, where Augusto Figueroa ends. The neighbourhood called it the square of the olive tree, after the tree that presides over the corner, a fond name that never reached any municipal register. The gap was born when the old number 43 was rebuilt and its façade set back, absorbing the house’s courtyard into the public way. Raffaella Carrà, born in Bologna in 1943, won over Spain from 1975 with her TVE shows, and many of those studios were in Madrid, a city where, as she often said, she felt free. At World Pride 2017 she was named Global Gay Icon. The square was inaugurated on 6 July 2022, the first anniversary of her death and the opening day of that year’s Pride. Today the place is marked by a plaque of nine tiles bearing her portrait. Madrid was the first city in the world to dedicate a square to Raffaella Carrà.

At Madrid’s 2017 World Pride, Raffaella Carrà took part in the raising of the rainbow flag on the façade of the Palacio de Cibeles alongside mayor Manuela Carmena. That image circulated as a symbol of the event and became permanently associated with Carrà in the city. When the square was inaugurated five years later, the chosen date —⁠6 July 2022⁠— was no accident: it coincided with the official start of Pride and with the first anniversary of her death.