Walking through the main parts of Madrid is like reading without even knowing it. The writing isn’t done with ink; it’s done with fired clay that has been glazed and embedded in the city’s skin. You might first see it at a street corner, where you look up from a map and see not a cold metal sign but a nine-tile panel of painted ceramic. The name “Street of the Carts” comes from the frantic scene of overturned carts and a 16th-century revolt on the Calle de las Carretas. It looks like a storybook illustration. A chained lion stares out from the tiles on Calle del León. This is a reference to the story of a wild beast that was once kept there for people’s entertainment. These little stories, which are spread out by the hundreds throughout the old city, are just the most personal part of a much bigger story. If you look up, you’ll see it happening on a huge scale: on the allegorical friezes of big public buildings, the shimmering domes of old churches, and the bright, full-fronted ads of century-old taverns.
This is the ceramic art of Madrid, which is an important part of the city’s visual and cultural language that people often forget about. Madrid’s ceramic heritage is mostly an applied art, unlike the pottery traditions of Iberian cities like Seville or Valencia, which have been passed down through generations of local craftsmen. This is because Madrid was once the national capital and brought in talent and commissioned greatness to build its modern identity. It is not a story about the ground under the city but about the dreams that have grown on it. The city’s ceramic murals tell a unique story of social ambition, commercial life, and the constant tension between old traditions and new ideas in the city. They range from the grand state-sponsored murals of the 19th century to the lively commercial murals of the 20th century and the artisanal renaissance of the 21st century.
The Past of Madrid’s Ceramic Art
Long before Madrid became the political and artistic center of Spain, the story of the Spanish tile, or azulejo, began. The word itself comes from the Arabic word al zulaycha, which means “little polished stone.” This shows that it comes from the Moors, not, as is often thought, the Spanish word for blue, azul. Arab craftsmen brought the first tiles to the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th century. Most of them were green, brown, or yellow, and their opaque, bright glazes were a rediscovery of an ancient Mesopotamian method. The first methods were very hard. The
The alicatado technique, which can be seen in all its stunning complexity at the Alhambra in Granada, involved hand-chiseling pre-fired tiles into geometric shapes and putting them together like a puzzle. To make this process easier, craftsmen came up with the
Using the cuerda seca (dry cord) method, they drew lines on a single tile with a greasy substance. These lines acted as barriers that kept the different colored glazes from bleeding into each other while they were being fired.
After the Christian Reconquista, these Islamic techniques were not thrown away but instead combined with Christian ones to create a new style called Mudéjar. Muslim craftsmen used their complex geometric and plant motifs on Christian buildings, which became a key part of Spanish decorative arts. The Italian Renaissance came along at the end of the 16th century and made the next big leap. In 1498, an Italian painter named Francesco Niculoso, who was also known as Pisano, moved to Seville and brought the
The majolica technique changed tile-making from a decorative craft to a painterly art form. Instead of patterns that repeat,
Majolica saw a panel of tiles as one big canvas. Using chiaroscuro, or the use of light and shadow, artists could now paint big, story-like scenes that gave the impression of three-dimensional volume, which was completely new to the medium.
Madrid was a powerful patron of these traditions, even though they thrived in other places. Its direct role started in the 18th century when royal factories were built. In 1760, King Charles III started the Buen Retiro Royal Porcelain Factory. In 1817, the Royal Factory of La Moncloa took its place. These institutions were set up to make beautiful things for the court, and they became centers of ceramic knowledge in the capital. They laid the groundwork for the huge growth of architectural ceramics that would shape Madrid’s urban landscape in the next hundred years.
The Master Tilers Who Made Madrid What It Is Today
A few master ceramists had a big impact on the way Madrid looked, especially from the late 1800s to the middle of the 1900s. These men, who often came from the famous pottery towns of Andalusia or Talavera de la Reina, brought their skills to the capital. Their work together and against each other created some of the city’s most famous public art.
The Zuloaga family is one of the most famous and important Spanish ceramicists. The brothers Daniel, Guillermo, and Germán were very well-known and skilled because they had trained at the famous national porcelain factory in Sèvres, France. They took over the Royal Factory of La Moncloa in 1874, restarting it and starting a new era of production. Daniel Zuloaga (1852–1921) is the most famous of the brothers. He was a master of large-scale architectural ceramics. He worked with architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco to build some of Madrid’s most famous buildings, such as the Palacio de Velázquez in Retiro Park, the Palacio de Fomento (now the Ministry of Agriculture), and the beautiful facade of the Museo Geominero. Zuloaga’s style, with its bright colors and big allegorical panels showing themes of industry and science, fit in perfectly with the historicist architecture of the time. His work on the shiny, multicolored dome of the Templo Nacional de Santa Teresa can still be seen in the Madrid skyline near the Plaza de España.
Zuloaga was the most important figure in the monumental sphere, but Juan Ruiz de Luna (1863–1945) was the most important figure in the narrative tradition of Talavera de la Reina. He helped start the Nuestra Señora del Prado factory in Talavera in 1908 with the goal of bringing back the town’s famous majolica pottery. His workshop set a standard for quality, and he decorated many modernist buildings in Madrid, such as the historic Casa de Cisneros in the Plaza de la Villa. His grandson, Alfredo Ruiz de Luna González, carried on this legacy into the late 20th century. In 1992, the city asked him to make the nearly 1,500 pictorial street signs that now decorate central Madrid. Each nine-tile panel is like a small mural that tells the story behind the street’s name. This makes the city’s history into a kind of visual folklore that everyone can understand.
The use of this high art in advertising peaked in the early 20th century, thanks to the partnership and later rivalry between Enrique Guijo and Alfonso Romero Mesa. Guijo, who was born in 1871 and was a restorer and ceramist from Córdoba, was an important part of the revival of the medium that was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. He started a business in Madrid in 1917 with his skilled apprentice, Romero Mesa. Together, they took over the growing market for commercial ceramic art, making beautiful tiled fronts for shops and bars and getting the job of making ads for the new Metro system. In 1923, they broke up after a bitter fight over the important job of decorating the Las Ventas bullring. Romero won the job in the end. Even though they broke up, both left a lasting impression. Guijo’s work can still be seen on the beautiful facade of the Farmacia Juanse. Romero’s career ended with his stunning, full-facade masterpiece for the flamenco bar Villa Rosa in Plaza Santa Ana, which is now a vibrant and lasting symbol of Madrid’s ceramic heritage.
A Public Gallery: Reading Madrid’s Urban Text
Ceramic art in Madrid isn’t just in galleries; it’s part of the city’s architecture and public spaces. It works like a distributed museum, telling the stories of the city from every surface.
Architectural ceramics were very popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Architects and artists worked together to make buildings that were both useful and very meaningful. The Palacio de Velázquez (1883), which was built for a national mining exhibition, is a great example of this style. The building’s facade has intricate friezes of Mudejar-inspired patterns and large figurative panels celebrating art and science. These are a visual representation of modern progress. The architect was Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, and the ceramic work was done by Daniel Zuloaga. The Museo Geominero (c. 1925), another collaboration between the two, is a tour de force, with Zuloaga’s beautiful allegorical panels celebrating the sciences of mining and geology. Madrid’s take on Art Nouveau, or
Modernismo also included ceramics. The Palacio de Longoria (1902–03) uses the trencadís technique of broken tile mosaic, which Gaudí is known for. The Compañía Colonial building (1906–09) has beautiful panels by Zuloaga that show tea, cacao, and coffee flowers, which are a direct and artistic reference to the company that is housed there.
In the early 1900s, merchants in Madrid began using ceramic tiles as a long-lasting and attractive way to advertise. This became a defining feature of the city’s urban character. The now-closed tavern Los Gabrieles on Calle Echegaray was once called the “Sistine Chapel of Tilework” and was a famous place to see this type of art. The walls were covered in beautiful, colorful murals by the best artists of the time, like Romero, Guijo, and Ruiz de Luna. Many of these were paid for by sherry makers from Jerez. The iconography was a lively mix of scenes from folklore, bullfighting, and funny pictures of life in Madrid. The building’s closing and the careful removal of these protected tiles have made their fate a major concern for heritage. During the Franco era, many of these facades were covered in plaster to avoid paying taxes on advertising on the outside. They were only rediscovered decades later, which sparked a renewed interest in this unique art form.
This public gallery goes all the way down to the ground. There are dozens of murals, many of them ceramic, at the Madrid Metro system’s stations. It’s like a museum of public art. Eladio García de Santibáñez and Ángel Atienza’s workshop were two of the many artists who left their mark on the network. They made abstract and figurative works that turned useful spaces into works of art. The recent discovery of a 1920s ad by Alfonso Romero Mesa in the renovated Sevilla station, along with the preserved historic ads in the “ghost station” of Chamberí, shows how the system has changed over time, going from a place for commercial tilework to a canvas for commissioned public art.
A Fired Revival: The Modern Ceramics Scene in Madrid
Ceramic art in Madrid is not a thing of the past; it is going through a lively rebirth. This revival has two parts: ceramics are becoming a respected medium in the modern fine art world, and the craft is becoming more accessible to everyone through a growing culture of studios and workshops.
A new group of artists is pushing the limits of the medium. Artists like Gregorio Peño, who makes big abstract works, and Elena Alonso, whose sculptures are inspired by decorative arts, are getting a lot of attention around the world. Many of these new artists have degrees in fine arts and have chosen ceramics as their main way of expressing themselves. They have opened their own studios and teach there as well. Adriana Machado Studio is one of the studios that still makes integrated architectural murals. They make custom geometric and figurative pieces for design projects. Even street art has changed. For example, Nean makes small, pixelated tile mosaics that look like the work of the artist Space Invader and puts them on building corners in neighborhoods like Malasaña and Chueca.
A strong educational system helps this creative growth. The historic Escuela de Arte Francisco Alcántara, which opened in 1911, is still an important center of learning, offering advanced courses in architectural ceramic coatings. It has a long history with the masters of the golden age, since both Guijo and Zuloaga were professors there. In the last few years, many private studios, such as The Pottery Madrid and Amasarte, have started offering classes to the general public. This shows that there is a lot of interest in the craft at the grassroots level. This trend shows that people want more real, creative experiences to balance out the digital overload of modern life.
Ceramics’ growing popularity in the commercial art market is a clear sign of its rising status. The opening of cerARTmic in 2024, Spain’s first contemporary art fair just for ceramics, was a big deal. It gave the medium a high-profile platform. Ceramicists are now regularly featured in galleries like POTT Gallery and Espacio Mínimo. Major cultural events like the Madrid Design Festival also include ceramics in the larger conversation about contemporary art, showing that the medium has been officially re-evaluated from “craft” to “fine art.”
Keeping the Spirit of Madrid Alive, One Tile at a Time
Even though ceramic murals are made of strong materials, they are still weak. Because they are permanent parts of the city, they can be damaged by the environment, new construction, and neglect. So, keeping Madrid’s ceramic heritage alive is an ongoing challenge.
The Community of Madrid has laws in place to protect its cultural heritage. It does this by classifying assets as either a Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC), for works of the highest corresponding importance, or a Bien de Interés Patrimonial (BIP), for those with special significance. Maya. The General Directorate of Cultural Heritage must approve any intervention. This is done by a commission that has published detailed technical criteria that stress the importance of material authenticity.
Recent cases show how complicated this work can be. The restoration of a ceramic road sign from 1944 at the Palacio de Baena in 2024 is an example of modern conservation. It involved careful cleaning, re-adhesion of fragments, and chromatic reintegration. The story of the Baltasar Bachero mosaic on Calle del Salitre shows how strong community memory can be. The mural was made in 1971 to honor a local coachman who died saving children. It has outlasted the official street name given to him by the City Council, which was later taken away. It remains a community-driven memorial, and its social value is a strong reason to keep it.
The fight to save a 1954 mural by the famous artist César Manrique may be the most important one going on right now. It is his last remaining ceramic work on the street level in Madrid, and it is on a commercial property. After years of pushing for it, the City Council recently ordered a temporary halt to construction work that was threatening the mural. They are now looking into how to give it permanent protection. The case brings up two important preservation issues: how to protect art on buildings that aren’t historic and whether or not to keep a work of art.
in place or move it for safety. This cycle of making, breaking, and finding again shows how fragile public art really is. It will only last if it is physically strong and if the economy, fashion, and public memory change.
To find out what makes Madrid’s ceramic identity so unique, you have to look at its Iberian neighbors. The Mudejar and Renaissance periods are where Seville’s legacy comes from. During these times, the city was a center of production that mixed Islamic and Christian art. The grand, blue-and-white narrative murals of the 17th and 18th centuries are what Lisbon is known for. This style of art became a big part of what it means to be Portuguese. The customs of Madrid are different. It isn’t defined by a single, locally developed style. Instead, it’s defined by how it uses these imported traditions in new, urban ways. The art of a capital city building itself is to use huge allegories to show off the power of the state, colorful commercial murals to attract a new group of customers, and story-telling street signs to record its own history and folklore.
The ceramic art of Madrid, in all its forms, tells a strong, real story about the city’s history, commerce, and character. This story is still being written, fired, and displayed on the city’s walls, waiting for anyone who wants to read it.
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