Círculo de Bellas Artes: Minerva's Rooftop
Why is it significant?
Tilt your head back and follow the facade all the way up, past the balconies and columns, to the very top. There, against the sky, a bronze goddess in a helmet holds a spear and gazes over the city. That is Minerva, goddess of wisdom and the arts, patron of the club that lives beneath her.
Key Facts
| Place | Círculo de Bellas Artes: Minerva's Rooftop |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de Alcalá 42, 28014 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.41870, -3.69610 |
| Part of Walk | Madrid's Barrio de las Letras: Cervantes, Lope de Vega & the Writers' Quarter |
| Generated | Generated |
Tilt your head back and follow the facade all the way up, past the balconies and columns, to the very top. There, against the sky, a bronze goddess in a helmet holds a spear and gazes over the city. That is Minerva, goddess of wisdom and the arts, patron of the club that lives beneath her.
The Círculo de Bellas Artes was founded in 1880 by a group of painters and sculptors who wanted somewhere to meet, argue, exhibit and dance. In 1926 it moved into this tower designed by Antonio Palacios, the same architect who built the great white post office palace at Cibeles, a few minutes east. Palacios loved height, stone and drama, and he gave the artists something close to a skyscraper.
Over the twentieth century the Círculo became one of Madrid's great meeting houses for the arts, with exhibitions, concerts, cinema, lectures and, in the 1920s and 30s, masked carnival balls that people still talk about. Its grand café on the ground floor, with tall windows and chandeliers, has been a place where writers read the newspapers, wrote, and watched the traffic of Calle de Alcalá for a century.
The Minerva on the roof arrived only in the 1960s, a bronze by the sculptor Juan Luis Vassallo, and she is bigger than she looks from the street. Beneath her feet is a rooftop terrace with one of the best views in Madrid, and from it you can trace the next part of this walk. Look south over the tiled roofs: the narrow tangle of streets between the Carrera de San Jerónimo and Calle de Atocha is the Barrio de las Letras, the Quarter of Letters.
Four hundred years ago, almost every great name of Spanish literature lived down there, rubbing shoulders, borrowing money and writing poisonous verses about each other. Now walk west along Calle de Alcalá, turn left down Calle de Sevilla, and cross to the Carrera de San Jerónimo. Look for an old shopfront of dark wood with a silver samovar inside.