Mercado de San Fernando
Restored nineteen-forties covered food market with a lively mix of traditional stalls and artisan shops.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mercado de San Fernando in Madrid's Lavapiés neighborhood starts with a mob setting fire to a school on this corner the day after the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, and the burned-out lot it left behind. It follows Madrid's decision in 1943 to hold a competition for a covered market on the ashes, architect Casto Fernández-Shaw's winning design of brick, granite and flattened vaults, and the butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers who filled the stalls as the neighborhood rebuilt around them. Best heard while wandering the market's aisles, stall by stall.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Mercado San Antón
Three-floor gourmet food hall with a solar skylight, tapas stands, and a rooftop terrace kitchen.
Mercado de San Miguel
Wrought-iron and glass covered market hall from nineteen sixteen, now a gourmet food and tapas destination.
Rastro de Madrid
Historic Sunday flea market spilling down a sloped street once walked by tanners and butchers.
Mercado de Motores
Monthly flea market of vintage clothing, vinyl and antiques staged among nineteenth-century locomotives in a disused railway station.
Lavapiés
Historic working-class quarter of narrow lanes and inner-courtyard corralas, now Madrid's most multicultural neighborhood.
CentroCentro
Monumental former post office of stone, iron and glass, now a free cultural center with a rooftop viewing deck.