Plaza de España
Grand square anchored by a decades-in-the-making monument to Don Quixote's creator, flanked by twin mid-century skyscrapers.
This guide to Plaza de España in Madrid opens in 1915, when a contest to design a monument to Cervantes ahead of the tricentenary of his death set off a furious public protest signed by over a hundred of Spain's leading writers and artists, among them Ramón del Valle-Inclán. It follows the winning design by Rafael Martínez Zapatero and Lorenzo Coullaut Valera as it was funded by subscribers across the Spanish-speaking world and slowly took shape around Cervantes' bronze figure, with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza joining soon after. Listen for how the bronze cast grew again decades later, long after the anniversary it was built for had passed.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.