MADRID — In 1936, photographer Robert Capa trained his lens on
children outside a pockmarked tenement in Madrid that had been bombed by the
German Luftwaffe. That image of the Spanish Civil War remains a powerful
reminder of the effects of armed conflict on civilians.
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This month, some 85 years after the picture was made, plans are
underway for the decrepit, century-old building to be preserved and converted
into a cultural center that will celebrate the photographer’s work and
commemorate Madrid’s wartime history. Residents of the tenement were
permanently moved to subsidized housing.
For those who had made their homes in the building, the change
was long overdue. Most of them could not afford something better because of a
chronic shortage of subsidized housing in Madrid. In January, the discrepancy
between the city’s haves and have-nots was on full display when a giant
snowstorm deepened the misery in one of the poorest areas of Madrid.
In their new homes, the residents will pay the same or even less
for more space, proper heating and other improvements.
“Capa has been wonderful for us,” said Cristina Uquillas, who,
along with her two children and mother, moved out— the last of the 14 families
living in the building to do so. “But I also feel that people should get decent
housing without having to get this kind of miraculous help from a great
photographer.”
Underlining the problem, when the last occupants moved out,
builders immediately sealed off the doors and windows of the tenement to
prevent squatters from moving in.
Uquillas, a meatpacker in Madrid’s main food market, said she
was happy to leave behind the damp, peeling walls but acknowledged that she
would miss the tenement’s tight-knit community.
“Everybody always had a problem,” she said. “But there was also
always somebody to help out.”
José María Uría, who works for a labor union foundation that led
the efforts to salvage the Capa building, said that when the tenement opened in
1927, it was billed as a “new housing model for the working class.”
Some local residents even called the building “the home of the
rich,” Uría added, because one of its inner courtyards had the relative luxury
of a water well.
Since then, the Capa tenement, in the Vallecas neighborhood of
Madrid, has led something of a charmed life.
It survived not only the Spanish Civil War but also the
extensive overhaul of the area in the decades after the fighting, leaving it as
one of the few buildings barely changed from that era.
The photograph taken by Capa, who was born in Hungary and had
traveled to Spain to document the war, initially made the front cover of a
French newsmagazine, Regards, in December 1936. It was later used by other
European and American publications, including The New York Times.
The picture “launched his reputation,” said Cynthia Young,
former curator of the Robert Capa archive at the International Center of
Photography in New York. “It was the first time he had been called out for his
work on the cover of a magazine, rare for any photojournalist at the time.”
The decision to preserve the building was made in 2018, when the
parliament of Spain’s capital region voted to create the cultural center. To
take ownership of the building, the city paid off the old owners at a cost of
about $1 million.
Nowadays, any poignancy about living in the historical building
was outweighed by its practical disadvantages, residents said.
“The only reason I lived here so long is that I could never
afford anything better,” said Rosa Báez, who spent eight years in the building.
“I’m now getting a better apartment and am among the lucky ones,”
she added.
Uquillas, as she left with her family, offered thanks to Capa
for his indirect role in her move. Finally getting an upgrade, she said, felt
like “winning the lottery.”
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