Little-Known Wonders of Madrid: The Neo-Gothic Church of Santa Cruz

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It cannot be said that this is one of the oldest churches in Madrid, but it is an objectively valid statement to highlight that in it we have one of the most bewitching and at the same time, as paradoxical as it may seem, one of the most bewitched of that Madrid, traditional and friend of supernatural legends, which usually appears little or not at all in tourist circuits, but which is worth strolling through, at least once in a lifetime, as the writer Juan Eslava Galán would say.

Its conception, based on a style, the neo-Gothic - which, together with the neo-Romanesque, was a fashion for recovering architecture from the past, which meant a compulsive return to the origins, until relatively modern times - where there is no lack, either, of that wink towards the classical architecture of Madrid, based mainly on the old Mudejar style, was carried out following the patterns established by the Marquis of Cubas, at the end of the 19th century, taking advantage of the site where another temple once stood, with a sinister history and unfortunate misfortunes : the convent of Dominican monks of Santo Tomás.

Perhaps due to this circumstance, to which we should add the high degree of superstition of the people of Madrid, shortly after the Santa Cruz temple was inaugurated -at the beginning of the 20th century, in the year 1902- the strange and at the same time , curious rumor, of having been seen a sinister shadow on the bell tower, which, before disappearing and with a thunderous and guttural voice, that cursed the country and announced the destruction of Spain.

Black legends apart -of which Spain has always had its own and this one, with capital letters- the most outstanding of the conception of styles devised by the Marquis of Cubas, is evident, above all, facing the exterior, wearing one of the most curious portals of the entire religious-heritage complex of Madrid, where the ogival characteristics of the Gothic are superimposed on the prominence of the extension of a tower, which combines, in the solid conception of the brick, the simplistic beauty of the Mudejar.

But the monumental, that which in some way stirs up the spirit, attracting it towards those same heights towards which those daring and evolutionary stonemasons who were looking for the Light of God beyond the darkness of a preceding style, the Romanesque, were also looking, is, certainly inside.

An interior, where the elegance of the transept stands out, whose Solomonic columns become immeasurable, when they converge on a wonderful dome, with a geometrically octagonal spire, in which the typical pendentives of the arches are replaced by steps, by way of archivolts. , offering a truly sublime vision of that gothic ideology that continues to amaze the world and that constitutes an example of charisma and fantasy, difficult to surpass.

On the other hand, and as a climax, it should be noted that the neo-gothic church of Santa Cruz is located, as has been said, at number 6 Calle de Atocha, a few meters from the superb baroque building that houses the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. , as well as a Plaza Mayor, whose delicious architecture, to which must be added its varied and willing hotel and leisure establishments, can be the final point of an experience, capable of leaving an extraordinary taste in the mouth.

NOTICE: Both the text, as well as the photographs that accompany it, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and, therefore, are subject to my Copyright.

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