Teatro Barceló: The White Liner of Madrid Nights
Why is it significant?
Face the white building with its smooth curved corner and long horizontal bands, like the bow of an ocean liner that has run aground in the middle of Madrid.
Key Facts
| Place | Teatro Barceló: The White Liner of Madrid Nights |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de Barceló 11, 28004 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.42700, -3.69970 |
| Part of Walk | From the Dos de Mayo to La Movida: Malasaña & Chueca, Madrid's Rebel Quarters |
| Generated | Generated |
Face the white building with its smooth curved corner and long horizontal bands, like the bow of an ocean liner that has run aground in the middle of Madrid. It went up in 1930, designed by Luis Gutiérrez Soto, a young architect who was crazy about the modern movement, and it was built for films and shows.
In 1930 this was the future. Madrid was building cinemas as fast as it could, and architects were trading ornament for clean lines, ribbon windows and rounded corners. The Barceló, with the covered market across the street, belonged to a city that believed it was becoming fully modern... a belief that the Civil War would interrupt six years later.
Its second life began around 1980, when it became a nightclub and one of the temples of the Movida. To feel that moment, imagine Madrid after almost forty years of dictatorship: Franco dies in 1975, censorship collapses, the Constitution arrives in 1978, and suddenly teenagers can dye their hair green. Bands like Kaka de Luxe, Alaska y los Pegamoides, Radio Futura and Nacha Pop play with more nerve than technique. Pedro Almodóvar shoots his first feature, Pepi, Luci, Bom, in 1980. A tribute concert in February 1980 to Canito, a young drummer killed in a road accident, is often remembered as the starting gun.
The Movida had an unlikely godfather: Enrique Tierno Galván, an elderly socialist professor elected mayor in 1979. Instead of frowning at the noise, he joked with the crowds at concerts, opened public spaces to young bands and became their favourite grandfather. When he died in 1986, an enormous crowd followed his funeral through the streets.
The Movida burned fast and was mostly over by the end of the decade. But the freedom it shouted about stayed. Now walk a few steps further, around the corner into Calle de San Mateo, where a palace keeps the music of an earlier generation of rebels.