Madrid/Brujas/Toledo De la metrópolis a la ciudad muerta. 1870-1914

Abstract

The European metropolis of the 19th century is almost synonymous with the birth of modernity. The city created a new economy, revolutionary means of transportation, vigorous commerce and a complete change of life and behavior. This article studies how Madrid, during the second half of the Nineteenth century was also a showcase of the novel urbanism problems and failures; how the metropolis was blamed for the rural population exodus to slums in the city’s outskirts, the creation of a lumpenproletariat population plagued by alcoholism, prostitution and poverty, and the source of fears and anguish by the threat of unruly mobs and European decadence. Artists and writers found a shelter from this evils in the
“dead city”, a topic in Georges Rodenbach” novel Bruges la morte, which exalted the monumental ancient city, closed to progress and modernity. Several Spanish cities fitted this archetype, and most of all Toledo, exalted because of its severe landscape, monuments and El Greco’s art.