Plaza del Biombo

Behind the church of San Nicolás de los Servitas, the oldest still standing in Madrid, lies a discreet plot in the heart of Habsburg Madrid. The square’s name is already on Texeira’s map of 1656, so it had been in use for centuries. The convent that occupied the area was called the Annunciation, but everyone knew it by something else. Its rear, the part facing the open ground, had a jagged, angular profile, and from that came the name: those crooked little streets came to be known as the Biombo (the folding screen). Mesonero Romanos described them in 1861 as odd corners and twisting turns. The Mendizábal confiscation dissolved the community in 1836 and the old building came down to open streets and raise tenement houses. The pickaxe straightened the twisting layout that had given the place its name, and even so the square kept its nickname for good.