Calle de Claudio Coello (Madrid)

Claudio Coello Street is a street in the city of Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, in the Salamanca district. It begins at Alcalá Street, a few metres from the Puerta de Alcalá, and extends in a straight line to María de Molina Street, in a south-north direction. It is dedicated to Claudio Coello, chamber painter to Charles II of Spain.

History

Several chroniclers agree in pointing out this street as the second to be urbanised with the construction of the first buildings in the Salamanca district, in the last days of the reign of Isabella II, and occupying the block between Jorge Juan and Villanueva streets –extending to Goya–, with Serrano as parallel to Claudio Coello.

Neighbours

Among its illustrious neighbours, the poet Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida stands out, who lived and died in the house where his family had been welcomed at the old number 7 (25 in the 21st century). Also mentioned as neighbours of interest are Ramón Rodríguez Correa, a journalist and friend of Bécquer; Juan Bautista Alonso, president of the Council of State who died at number 26 on 5 December 1879; the poet José Selgas y Carrasco, who died on 5 February 1882 in his house at number 38; as well as, already in the 20th century, the playwright Guillermo Fernández-Shaw Iturralde. Luis Carrero Blanco died at number 104 of this street on 20 December 1973, although not a resident of it, and was a victim along with his entourage of the so-called “Operation Ogre”, in the last years of Franco’s regime.

Notable buildings

Among the religious buildings that were built on this street, it is worth mentioning the convent of Santo Domingo el Real, a brick building with a flat-domed church, the work of Vicente Carrasco in 1882; the hospital and church of San Andrés de los Flamencos, inaugurated in 1884, and heirs to the one founded in 1606 by Carlos Ambrosio on San Marcos Street; the orphanage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, completed in 1886 according to the neo-Gothic design of Francisco de Cubas y González-Montes; and at number 78 the hospital of San Luis de los Franceses was built, which was previously on Tres Cruces Street.

Also noteworthy is the structure of the La Paz market, the first market in the Salamanca district, built on land owned by Jaime Girona around 1885. It has been preserved, renovated and adapted, with entrances also on Ayala Street and Lagasca Street.