Cities have always been imaged by art, carrying with them a multiplicity of artistic representations of their built space seamlessly incorporated into their visual repertoire. Madrid is no exception: photographs, poems, novels, posters, cartoons, films—even music—have collectively contributed to shaping a rich and intangible urban tapestry, one where the city is not only lived, but also envisioned. As a form of creation and repository of collective images, this imaginary of Madrid is thus a product of social space and therefore arises from a process of negotiation between the environment and the built space mediated through art.

Just as striking is the recurrent use of the city’s periphery, an undeveloped space whose significance quickly grew following the rural exodus of the 1940s. It was precisely this evolving landscape that directors like Luis García Berlanga, Carlos Saura and Pedro Almodóvar turned their lens toward, depicting the life in those suburbs that neither Metro nor money will ever arrive to. In this sense, by analyzing the physical conditions and the characterization of the space represented, we can approach how each scene, in its own way, triggers an irreversible action on the space in which it is set: it charges it up with images of meaning.

Cinema, in particular, reveals layers of the city that might otherwise remain unseen. It is no longer the space or the scene that matter separately, but rather the scene in the space, and the space as touched by the projected image. By mapping over one hundred film scenes onto a digital cartography of Madrid, we are able to distinguish some areas that have been heavily imbued with qualities through filmmaking. Unsurprisingly, the historic city centre emerges as a prominent node. Films such as El día de la bestia (Álex de la Iglesia, 1995), El último caballo (Edgar Neville, 1950), Abre los ojos (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997), or Laberinto de pasiones (Pedro Almodóvar, 1982), among many others, took advantage of its historical significance and incorporated it into their production.

When multiple scenes coincide in or near the same location, this layering produces a powerful accumulation of imagery. Such is the case with the Gran Vía. Conceived at the turn of the twentieth century as a herald of modernity, the Gran Vía has served as both subject and backdrop for a wide spectrum of artistic forms. A photograph by Otto Wunderlich taken around 1925, and a postcard produced just months later, stand among the earliest visual records of the street from its intersection with Calle Alcalá.

Both capture a newly inaugurated artery, teeming with life and optimism. That same stretch would later be reimagined by painters like Nicanor Piñole in the 1930s and Antonio López between 1974 and 1981. There are fifty years of distance between the works of these two artists, but there is also an important distance in the aura of the iconic space represented: the light of opposite moments of the day; the indeterminate and grey human masses against the impossible emptiness of a street that never is; or the atmosphere of an incipient modern city that shortly after would be the scene of the Spanish Civil War against that of one that was emerging exhausted from almost forty years of dictatorship. In this representing the place, is it not true that they fix the identity of the community as much as that of the place?

Above all, these images of Madrid help to strengthen the inhabitants’ sense of identity, foster social engagement, and deepen their feeling of belonging—ultimately cementing the powerful bond between people and place, and bearing witness to a shared urban life. Revealing the connections between communities, the spaces they inhabit, and the imagery that represents them shows how such representations are not mere reflections, but fundamental threads in the fabric of collective memory—and therefore, of cultural heritage. As Antonio Flores sang in 1988 in his iconic song Gran Vía:

«Pies acostumbrados a la velocidad

Personas que viven a un ritmo infernal

[…]

Oh, Gran Vía, y llevas aquí casi toda la vida

Oh, Gran Vía, la gente te quiere, todavía.»

(«Feet that have grown used to speed,

People living their lives at a hellish pace.

[…]

Oh, Gran Vía, you’ve been here almost forever,

Oh, Gran Vía, people love you, still».)