Mapping the destruction. The Spanish Civil War bombings and Madrid’s architectural heritage

Abstract

In November 1936 began the first modern bombing of a great European city: Madrid. Despite the importance of this event, the bombings of Madrid were subsequently forgotten. The aim of this work is to carry out a cartography of the buildings destruction of Madrid as a result of the bombings of the war, in order to deepen its analysis and knowledge. Unlike other bombed cities have been the subject of study, among which Guernica or Barcelona stand out, the lack of specific research on the bombings of Madrid is striking. These have only been broadly studied, without delving into the consequences they had for the city. The three main documentary sources have their origin in the activity of three professional groups: firefighters, photojournalists and architects. From these sources, we have selected a set of data on relevant aspects of the attacks and their effects, such as diachronic succession, type of bombs thrown, intensity, patterns and degree of destruction of the buildings. Once these data have been mapped on the cartographic basis of the cadastral plan, we have graphically analysed and graphically expressed the information. The main result of the research is a database mapped on a set of city plans that we could call destruction cartography. They allow to analyse and visualise the different parameters studied, all of them relevant for the understanding of a complex reality on an urban support, which allows to deepen the knowledge of Madrid urbicide.