How to explore an unknown Malaga
They are not highlighted on the maps of the tourist offices nor are they promoted with much hype and, even so, travelers who have a sense of smell come to these corners. the recollect Glass and Crystal Museum of Malaga or the Plaza de la Artesanía offer the most genuine and modern face of a city worried about becoming a theme park for tourists.
In the surroundings of Carretería street one can feel a Malaga reminiscent of always but with a twist. Next to the charming **church of San Felipe Neri (18th century)**, Calle Cabello, small and cobbled, looks like something out of a town. There are pots of flowers and a neighbor recites poems of dubious quality on a loop.
In this environment, in which you do not have the feeling of being in the center of Malaga, is the curious Viarca stained glass workshop, of the master craftsman Alberto Cascón and his sons . He signs some of the most notable stained glass windows of the cathedral of Malaga or the church of La Paloma in Madrid , among other jobs.
Museum of Glass and Crystal, Malaga.
Together with the neighbors and merchants of the neighborhood, they are determined to offer another way of getting to know the city to world travelers who pass through here. They want to recover the artisan soul that this neighborhood, the old Arrabal de Fontanalla, had centuries ago . A neighborhood that was degraded until “the day before yesterday”, when the neighbors decided to take charge and give it the place it deserved.
When I look into the stained glass workshop, surrounded by huge charcoal sketches hanging on the walls , a group of American women gape at the magic of glass on fire. Meanwhile, the master craftsman's son tells them why during the Spanish Civil War some stained glass windows were destroyed in the great cathedrals (a fact that has allowed them to undertake magnificent restorations).
Then the group embarks on build a small stained glass window with your own hands . And a while later, with the work practically finished, I see them toast with ice-cold Victoria beers accompanied by a snack of products from Malaga. They talk about the divine and the human, about Malaga, about its idiosyncrasies, about what they have experienced these days in the city and also about stained glass windows and Decorative Arts in general.
Malaga
“In a little while we are going to visit the Museum of Glass and Crystal, the jewel in the neighborhood's crown,” explains David. East Museum of Decorative Arts , practically unknown in Spain, and little supported by the administration, is literally around the corner and is the typical museum that, if it were in another country like France or England, would appear in all the guides and there would even be queues to enter. Spain is different. Definitely.
UNDERSTANDING THE MYSTERIES AT THE MUSEUM OF GLASS AND CRYSTAL
The museum is a great house. A rare architectural avis that belonged to a middle-class family when it did not exist in Spain (18th century) and It contains part of the private collection of unique pieces (glass, crystal, furniture, paintings and other decorative objects) of Gonzalo Fernández Prieto , a collector from a good family, related to European fortunes, who studied Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and who from a young age, when he was a long-haired hippie, became fond of collecting.
Nothing more and nothing less than the director, collector and owner himself waits behind the entrance gate to pay us a visit, a unique and multifaceted individual who, as he explains why each of the pieces is emblematic, tells you anecdotes and gossip about the European aristocracy and their relationship with glass objects, and in between offers you a super fun educational class on what hidden and symbolic messages kept all these objects.
Around a central courtyard, and distributed over two floors, more than 3,000 unique pieces go through glass from Roman times to the 21st century . Pieces by Chihuly, the number one creator of contemporary glass, and by Peter Layton, Egidio Constantini, Chikara Hashimoto and a long etcetera, but also a series of 30 stained glass windows from the English Pre-Raphaelite school, 19th century.
Several of them belong to the best exponent of said school, William Morris , architect, designer and textile teacher, as well as a translator, poet, novelist and activist who wanted to make life more beautiful through the objects that surrounded his fellow men: to democratize beauty, and for this he joined the best artists of the moment with the best craftsmen to create objects.
Museum of Glass and Crystal, Malaga.
SOME APARTMENTS COMMITTED TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
After our private class on history, art, aristocratic protocol and fun gossip, waiting for us at the exit of the museum Montse Mayorga . Cheerful, affectionate and greeting all the neighbors, she is the president of the Arrabal de Fontanalla association , the name that the neighborhood had in Muslim times, when the famous golden earthenware that Malaga exported to the whole world in the 14th and 15th centuries.
In fact, under these floors there are still old ovens where the typical muslim pottery and some of these are already being valued by the neighborhood association and by the museum itself, one of the promoters of this entire recovery movement.
But Montse is also a tireless traveler, and she and her husband and her daughter lived in Thailand for a while. Today, all this feeling and savoir faire has been poured by her, together with her partner, in the design and the affection that she feels in each of the details of the Fontanalla Apartments , with which she has also wanted to honor the history of the neighborhood.
Three lofts and ten apartments and studios that combine nods to craftsmanship, design and the work of young artists Malagans from the San Telmo School, with a very special light in a 19th century building that was, originally, a gigantic churrería.
Apartments Fontanalla, Malaga
“I'm not from this neighborhood, but when I started to know him I totally fell in love. Suddenly I realized that this is a little piece of Malaga that still has essence, personality and a lot to rescue”. While he tells me we go through the Secondary Education Institute Vicente Espinel , on the way to the apartments. The neighborhood association usually meets here. Its arcaded interior patio is wonderful, although it still needs a set-up. “People as illustrious as Severo Ochoa studied here,” Montse explains to me.
“There are many like this jewel in the neighborhood. There are also many archaeological remains. The director of the glass museum is going to make an extension of his museum and is going to rescue the Chinchilla family oven, 17th century , the last one that was working, but we are also generating with the city council a medieval ceramics interpretation center which we hope will be up and running soon”.
In addition, this hyperactive association removes dirty graffiti from the walls of the neighborhood and replaces them with others of geraniums, launches campaigns such as Adopt a plant, to fill the neighborhood with green, and wants to turn its streets into open-air museums recovering the ancient frescoes that these houses had. “At the moment, and that's the interesting thing, we're keeping globalization at bay out there. This way its tentacles have not yet reached”.
Fontanalla Apartments. Three lofts and ten apartments and studios that combine nods to craftsmanship and design
SHOPPING AND WORKSHOPS IN THE PLAZA DE LA ARTESANÍA
A five-minute walk from here, another cultural epicenter of the neighborhood is the so-called Crafts Square . "Attracting other artisans to this neighborhood has been one of the city's big bets," he tells me. David Cascón, the son of the master glassmaker who is the one who gives me the coordinates of the square. A couple of years ago, seven artisans and some plastic artists, selected by the Promálaga La Brecha business incubator, opened their premises in this Plaza Eugenio Chicano, which was an old, rather degraded corrala.
One of these artisans is Alfonso Rot, superior technician of artistic ceramics and black leg potter . A resident of La Rambla, a pottery town in Córdoba, students of up to 58 nationalities have passed through his workshop. Like every day, he has the place full of citizens of the world with their hands in the mud and smiles from ear to ear. “At first, no one passed by here. But word of mouth has done almost everything”, he comments, while the dog of one of the students watches us sleepily from the door.
Here, Rot teaches from the most basic to the most advanced, from modeling on the table to the lathe , in three daily shifts, in which you find Russians, Koreans... lifelong residents of Malaga and students from the San Telmo School of Fine Arts who want to perfect their craft.
In the same square, the legendary **Discos Candilejas (musical crafts) ** has also moved its premises here. “Málaga is becoming a city for tourists and everything that is closed becomes a bar. So the fact that we still survive some different businesses is basically a miracle and that there are environments of this type is very appreciated, "says Fran, surrounded by vinyl for collectors, posters, second-hand editions...
Ceramics from the workshop of the artisan Alfonso Rot
LUTHIERS, GALLERIES, CANDIES…
In the workshop of luthiers and bow makers across the street, Paolo Palmiro and Magdalena Aguilar build and restore ancient instruments and bows . “The violin family are instruments that need constant intervention to always be at their best”, explains Magdalena. But in addition, "we build our own bows and ancient instruments, of authors".
They met in Cremona, at the International School of Lutherie and Archery and they came to Malaga to participate in this project of the city of artisans and try their luck. On her table, a viola da gamba with a headstock carved in the shape of a woman's head shows the quality of Magdalena's constructions. "I have built it entirely based on a German author from the 17th and 18th centuries," she explains.
Next to this space, another local, Isiwax, invites you to get to know the chandlery also applying new technologies . Workshops are given here for children and adults who want to delve into this trade: “There are many types of wax and many types of paraffin. The wax can be mixed with acids to make it more or less hard and there are some vegetable waxes, such as soybean or palm waxes that we work with here, although there are many. Paraffins come from petroleum. I do not use beeswax and all my products are vegan. ”, Explains its owner who tells us that her workshops for children begin with an introduction to fire and how it has accompanied man throughout the history of mankind. Her playful candle designs, from little sewing machines to paper boats, fill her shelves and are for sale.
Magdalena Aguilar in the luthiers and bow makers workshop.
Before leaving, we stumbled upon the gallery of the **illustrator Daniel Parra**, where the same artist also offers drawing and illustration training workshops to small groups, from a basic level to the most professional, courses for children included. His works, including a series of the cathedral of Malaga, and portraits of dogs dressed in suits, hang on the walls of the gallery.
and it's also Rattle , another gallery where its owner, Luis Reyes, gives field to local and international illustrators and where all the artistic objects are limited editions, ceramic pieces, exclusive products... at wonderfully affordable prices that make you want to buy. "Tomorrow we have a performance and from time to time we also have workshops given by the artists who pass through the gallery," he explains.
Matraca Gallery, Malaga
EAT, TAPA AND… ANOTHER UNMISSSIBLE MUSEUM
It's time to put something in our stomachs. We want to continue in the line of what is authentic and local and not leave the neighborhood. So we head towards one of those bars that you have to keep alive before they disappear. It is just behind the old food market, the Salamanca Market, a building with a metallic structure and neo-Arabic style with a lot of attraction, which we crossed, between shouts of shopkeepers and hubbub.
Practically on the way out, we meet the lively Salamanca bar . It is full of people from the neighborhood who come to eat their simple 7-euro menu. I ask porra antequerana first class and fried anchovies , delicious. Everything is to lick your fingers.
for those looking for something more formal and a more elaborate menu , the ** Buenavista restaurant **, on the same street Gaona, the one with the museum, is an option. Also Ollerías street, the artery of the neighborhood with more personality, you will find La Zumería with smoothies and juices made with products from the Axarquia region of Malaga and while you're at it, the curious vintage store Los Flamingos, with clothes by weight ; or the Oh La Lá, a kind of stationery where macramé workshops, painted plates…
Before leaving the neighbourhood, we take a tour of another of those unmissable museums in the city and another active member of the neighborhood's recovery work. The Jorge Rando Museum . This space annexed to the Mercederaias Monastery contains the work of this other painter and sculptor born in Malaga in 1941. His museum is the only expressionist museum in Spain and promotes the study of this movement , "the most humanized avant-garde that embraced all artistic manifestations, from philosophy, painting, sculpture or architecture to music, cinema or dance".
I stayed there, lost in thought before Jorge Rando's work clearly receiving sensations, amazed by his still lifes and his series of portraits of homeless people. His Foundation organizes every Saturday “Market Hour, Music Hour”, open-door concerts-rehearsals every Saturday at 12:00 noon , another good excuse to visit this inspiring neighborhood from time to time.
Malaga