Madrid, the Phoenix and resilience
Madrid It is a city of braves. has always been . And, unfortunately, now that life (and this virus) have put us on the ropes again, he has no choice but to prove it again. After this, as good cats collectors of lives, we will "crawl" again and stand up. we will start again . And we will learn from that mythological figure that populates the skies of Madrid and that has known about resilience, the fashionable word, for a long time: the Phoenix.
A recurring image in various cultures for centuries, the Phoenix It was, according to the narrative of herodotus , a “majestic animal the size of an eagle and the color of scarlet” that sang like the angels themselves. There was only one on the entire planet, who lived 500 years and had the incredible ability to be reborn from his own ashes.
Nothing less than eight sculptures dedicated to him are part of that Madrid Olympus . Two of them on the summit of emblematic hotels, which now offer a hopeful nod to a sector eager to take flight again.
Perhaps the first postcard that comes to mind when reading these lines is that of the metropolis building . But not. The figure that crowns this Madrid icon is not that of the Phoenix, but that of a fine and delicate Winged Victory . However -hot, hot- the shots were not far from there, because yes it was in its dome where the first Phoenix landed in Madrid , when it was not yet the Metropolis building nor did it belong to this insurance company… but to another. The one that raised those eight sculptures.
It was the year 1911 and it had been a little over a year since the Gran Vía had been inaugurated. the insurer The Union and the Spanish Phoenix I was looking for a impressive building to install its headquarters , and the one that occupied the corner with Alcalá street was the chosen one. It was a new construction with a French-style air and an impressive circular tower, which would be crowned with a statue of a Phoenix bird with a rider, brought from no less than Paris . An image that was not even painted as a metaphor for the company, and that it wanted to exploit as a brand image in all its buildings.
Postcard of the Palacio de la Unión and El Fénix Español (between 1916 and 1927)
The insurer lived in the 1930s a time of great expansion and while it was growing and opening new branches in the capital, new phoenixes began to fly through the skies of other cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and even Las Palmas de Gran Canaria or Albacete.
At the end of the 1960s they already had nearly 70 buildings , some abroad. The headquarters of the center remained small, and a new one more in line with the power and modernity required by the circumstance was already needed. The (current) Metropolis building was sold and its slate dome received a new tenant: the aforementioned Winged Victory that we know today , already outside the company. Its headquarters moved to a newly built skyscraper on Paseo de la Castellana (signed by Luis Gutierrez Soto ), in the heart of Madrid's buoyant financial district, and which once again finished off with an image of the Phoenix. The first original sculpture was placed in his garden, as a reminder of his beginnings.
The Phoenix Bird now rests on the Paseo de la Castellana
If not resurrected, at least saved from destruction, today the phoenix with its rider continue there , but not high, but, paradoxically, the original is at ground level . The same trend that the company took until in the 90s, after a period of fireworks, Mario Conde crashed it definitively, leading it to bankruptcy until it was absorbed in extremis by the French company AGF.
of this story of forced flights and landings are silent and discreet witnesses on the rooftops of Madrid , which preserve eight sculptures of the Phoenix, some with a rider, others without; in the cupolas of the old buildings of La Unión and El Fénix that today house, from the headquarters of an important communication group, the Ministry of Finance.
At the corner of Virgin of the Dangers and Alcalá , there is the Hotel Petit Palace Alcalá Torre. Was constructed between 1928 and 1931 as the clinic of La Unión and the Spanish Fénix by the architect López Otero (also author of the Ciudad Universitaria or the Arco de la Victoria). With its twelve floors and designed to the prevailing fashion of late 19th century Chicago style , it was one of the first skyscrapers in Madrid and today it is a charming boutique hotel with spectacular views s... and a Phoenix watching from above.
Hotel Petit Palace Alcala
The Hotel Gran Melia Fenix , next to the Plaza de Colón, would deserve a complete chapter in the life of the city. In the 1940s, La Unión y el Fénix bought the building and commissioned Cánovas del Castillo to build a luxury hotel in the image and likeness of the great hotels in large European cities . Inside, a model type “ winter Garden ” with a dome similar to that of other hotels, such as the Palace. Outside, its neoclassical façade is connected to the Phoenix that crowns it with red stripes that rise towards it, symbolizing the ashes that are reborn. It was the architect's first hotel and his lack of experience played a trick on him as a “first in hotel construction”, forgetting about the luggage door. What did not prevent that in a short time it became " the hotel of the Madrid nobility”.
Hotel Melia Fenix
The Phoenix has lived it all and, like the sculpture it presides over, has been able to see it reborn again and again and look at the city with new eyes and without losing its tradition. It has received actors and actresses from the most golden Hollywood (the mythical assistance of Gregory Peck at his inauguration , a Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, Cary Grant, Charles Bronson ….). The Beatles stayed there and gave a press conference when they gave their historic Las Ventas concert in 1965, one of the most important dates in the hotel's history.
Neither Gregory Peck nor The Beatles will return to the Phoenix . Not to Madrid. But at least we have left Holidays in Rome Y 'Hey Jude' to pass the time and cheer us up until all the rest of us are crawling again. To stand up.