New Travel Guide: The Madrid of Dalí, Lorca and Buñuel

An itinerary through Madrid devoted to Salvador Dalí, Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel. Madrid City Council's Tourism Department has recently published a new brochure exploring the artistic and cultural legacy left in the city of Madrid by these three great 20th-century Spanish artists. The guide introduces readers to the places where they lived and drew inspiration and highlights Madrid’s role as a city that embraces cultural talent, where geniuses of literature, painting and film have developed their careers throughout history. 

 

With a fold-out format and complete with a map, it offers practical information in Spanish and English about the Residencia de Estudiantes, a key hub in Madrid for the introduction of the European avant-garde at the time the three artists were living there, as well as about its surrounding area and some of the works by these three famous figures, which can be viewed in Madrid’s museums as well as on its streets. The guide also offers information on places frequented by the artists. It includes a map featuring 14 of points of interest that are related to the artists. 

 

The Madrid of Dalí, Lorca and Buñuel is the first in a new range of brochures created by the City Council's Tourism Department, which will offer visitors information on five different categories: Art & Culture, Leisure, Shopping, Gastronomy and Other Plans. 

 

New brochures featuring the same design format will soon be published, focusing on other great artists linked to Madrid such as Cervantes, Goya and Almodóvar, as well as on various subjects like Museums and Monuments (Art & Culture), Parks and Gardens (Leisure), Shopping Areas (Shopping), Tapas (Gastronomy) and Viewpoints (Other Plans). The city also plans to release brochures on Madrid LGBTI, Madrid with Kids and Flamenco.

 

This brochure was created in collaboration with the Residencia de Estudiantes, one of the city of Madrid’s most iconic cultural institutions, where Lorca, Dalí and Buñuel spent part of their youth. Recognised internationally as interwar Spain’s first cultural centre, it was a window to the intellectual, artistic and scientific developments of the time. 

 

It currently hosts talks, round tables, meetings and exhibitions, and continues to offer accommodation to researchers and creators. It boasts a recreation of a bedroom from the time, giving visitors a look at what the lodgings of these famous writers, scientists and artists were like.

 

Madrid is the permanent home of some of the works created by Lorca, Dalí and Buñuel. This guide offers an overview of the museums whose holdings include creations by the three artists. The Museum of Contemporary Art displays a painting by Dalí and houses a recreation of the study of writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna, an author who influenced all three artists. The Reina Sofía Museum harbours a significant collection of Dalí's works as well as some of Lorca’s drawings, and offers permanent screening of one of Luis Buñuel’s best-known films, An Andalusian Dog. Madrid also boasts the only urban sculpture created by Dalí, a monument that he gifted to the city which can be viewed in Plaza de Salvador Dalí in Barrio de Salamanca.

 

The guide also offers interesting facts about some of the places in Madrid frequented by the artists, from The Westin Palace Hotel, where Dalí and Buñuel listened to jazz music, to Teatro Español, where Lorca's Yerma premiered in 1934, to Museo Chicote, the legendary cocktail bar where movie stars and intellectuals would meet with the Aragonese filmmaker. 

 

The guide can be viewed or downloaded in PDF format on the city of Madrid’s official tourism website: https://www.esmadrid.com/en/madrid-dali-lorca-and-bunuel./