As I write this post, I am sitting in a small, overpriced coffee shop a few blocks away from school. The back wall of the coffee shop is unfinished, revealing several other paint jobs and the original concrete, instead of the white paint found on the other walls. A flannel-wearing waitress and a bearded barista sporting a denim apron make their way between the unfinished wooden tables and stools. The menu is written in chalk on two black walls, and the speakers are playing an eclectic mix that covers artists across genres, from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Katy Perry. Obligatory characteristics of any hip café, mason jars containing sugar don every table—and one table even supports an old typewriter.
One of numerous small coffee shops here in Madrid, it’s a friendly little café that makes a good café con leche. Alternative spots like this are ubiquitous in the city’s Malasaña neighborhood, the birthplace of a social movement that belies this café’s funky hipster atmosphere.
The Movida Madrileña was born in the years after Franco’s death, as Spain transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. It was a countercultural movement rooted in the hedonism that had been prohibited under Franco. In short, punk rock ruled. Alternative magazines gave the movement a backbone. As word spread, artists descended, and the movement expanded. Vigo, Barcelona, and Puertollano soon had their own movidas.
Originating as a post-dictatorship catharsis, the movement attracted leftists who had long been oppressed under the regime, and it even received support from the Madrid government. The socialist mayor of Madrid at the time, Enrique Tierno Galván, supported the movement, proving that Spain was distancing itself from its fascist past. And, as the art of the period suggests, Malasaña was miles away from any hint of fascism.
The photographer Alberto García-Alix documented this shift in ideology firsthand. His photographs—which often included naked subjects and heroin needles—showed the very alternative, near-dystopian world of Malasaña. His black and white photographs documented the grungy realities of everyday life, fully consumed by the countercultural movement, which he, too, was participating in.
After getting to know the history of the neighborhood, it’s become very easy for me to see how Malasaña came to be the way it is. Taking a turn down a less-gentrified street is a serious reminder that, despite the cute cafés and the moms with strollers, Malasaña is not upscale. It’s a place where students at my college—which is also referred to as Spanish word for “preppy”—never find themselves. It’s not filled with tourists, either. But it is authentically Madrid, having developed alongside the city since the start of Spanish democracy.
I’ve only learned about the history of Malasaña recently—long after I first went to one of the Movida’s typical bars, La Vía Láctea, or spent my time after class sitting in a cozy café. In these cafés, the mismatched chairs and the menus mixing English and Spanish bely a neighborhood that was once a whole lot less cute. Malasaña has lost its edge that would normally scare away any not-so-edgy passers-by, while retaining its ever-so-subtle avant-garde roots.
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