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I remember, as a child, how my mother would tell me off for not looking at the ground when I was walking and running around. As much as I appreciate (now) her caring for my welfare, it is a piece of advice that I always found very hard to heed. I have been a curious spirit all my life: the kind of boy whose gaze wanders about, absorbing all things around, looking for all new kinds of wonders (and ending up more often than not with skinned knees and dirty clothing after tripping in this or that crack in the pavement). Still that urge and restlessness tends to wear off as years go by and it wasn’t until past my teenage, when life put me up on top of a double-decker sight seeing bus for the first time, in my native city, that I reencountered the pleasure of wandering around looking up high. When you are in Madrid, there are many things that you do not want to miss, and the ceiling of this city is one of them.The trend started around the XIX century, while American cities started their efforts to build their skyscrapers higher and higher, banks and insurance companies in Madrid hired baroque style sculptors in a race to make their home quarters the most evoking and beautiful landmarks of the not so high skyline of the city. And so Madrid became a monumental city, safe under the watch of mythic heroes and figures. Phoenixes, champions, roman aurigas, kings and princes, temples and magical creatures crowned the buildings; some of them have been relocated, to be best admired, in more accessible places, while others have been replaced with replicas in lighter materials, favouring the welfare of the constructions, the originals now in museums, but there are still quite a few to recreate your senses in.
You will find many of them in the axis Puerta de Alcalá – Plaza de España, spanned by the Gran Vía: stand by the famous Puerta de Alcalá and walk down towards Cibeles square keeping your gaze levelled towards Gran Via an Alcalá streets, on the other side of Cibeles; in the confluence of these you will find Metropolis building, formerly home quarters to the insurance company La Unión y El Fenix. Nowadays a Winged Victory crowns the building, taking the place of the Phoenix which left the building along said company (and can be seen in a couple of other buildings in Madrid that belong, or did, to the insurance holding, like the Gran Melia Fenix hotel, by Columbus’ square, or the Union y el Fenix building further up the Paseo de la Castellana, where it is crossed by a bridge, part of Eduardo Dato street, or the Madrid-Paris, also in Gran Via). The appeal and ornamental richness of the piece remain, howevever,
intact. A little way up on the left hand side a Roman auriga, lifted above its chart for better view from the ground, looks ready to ride, soaring the skies of the city, on top of the Hispanic-American Bank. On a lower height he is watched by a worthy female counterpart: Palas Atenea, or Minerva, classic interpretation of the goddess of Knowledge and Arts, symbol of the Society of Arts, whose building protects, vigilant. As you walk along Gran Via or Alcalá in that same direction you fill find more examples in roofs and façades: temples (Callao square), Chariatides, gargoyles (dog faced, halfway through the first strand of Gran Via street a portal on the right hand side as you go up)…leaving Gran Via and Alcalá there are fantastic pieces above other buildings like the Ministry of Agriculture, in front of Atocha Train Station, or by the northwestern exit/entrance to the city, Moncloa, the Triumphal Arch, or, returning to Cibeles square, the angels holding the shield in Linares palace, or the allegories that sit high perched where this entry started in la Puerta de Alcala.These were a few examples, I do not pretend to make an exhaustive list of items; I will be happy if I can just bring out from you that necessity of looking up high, and explore, that I am sure you too had in your days. Done? Good, then drop by my city, and take a stroll around, you will not regret it. Oh, don’t worry about skinned knees and sore shins: we have chemist and pharmacies aplenty, and you can find (or bring along) you tender caring one to tell you off and kiss the pain good bye.
