La Latina

La Latina is a neighbourhood in the centre of Madrid, Spain. La Latina occupies the place of the oldest area in Madrid, the Islamic citadel inside the city walls, with narrow streets and large squares. It is administratively locked almost entirely within the district of Palacio in Centro. It was named after the old hospital, founded in 1499 by Beatriz Galindo "La Latina". It occupies a large part of what is known as El Madrid de los Austrias, and although its boundaries are subjective, it could be argued that it was essentially the vicinity of the San Francisco Racecourse - that continues from the Plaza de la Cebada up to the San Francisco el Grande Basilica. These limits are: to the north, Segovia street - a deep ravine formerly occupied by the San Pedro Stream which empties into the Manzanares River, to the south there is la Ronda and Puerta de Toledo, on the east there is Toledo street - bordering Rastro and the district of Lavapiés - and to the west, Bailen street.

La Latina occupies much of the oldest section of Madrid, sometimes referred to as El Madrid de los Austrias which maintains a peculiar urban layout similar to the medieval distribution, with spacious squares and narrow streets that follow the former course of creeks. As such, the effect is often that of a traditional pueblo rather than the heart of a major city. Its configuration overlaps almost perfectly with the first walled enclosures of the ninth-century fortress, Almudena - and that of the city - Medina - that surrounded it. Its streets have felt the presence of all historical events that took place in Madrid in all periods, without losing its popular character. In this sense it can be said that La Latina constitutes a large part of the true historic center of Madrid.

Despite the remarkable survival of some ancient building - among which are some of the best examples of so-called "casas a la malicia" (malice houses) - the construction of the neighborhood is mostly nineteenth century on ancient plots of collapsed or downed buildings which maintain the urbanism of narrow and broken streets with large plazas. There are very typical buildings with large and numerous windows that sometimes constitute narrow wrought iron balconies, slightly protruding eaves with Arabic tiled roofing and coloured mortar façade. They consist of four or five floors, further divided into flats according to the increase in height, generally devoting the entire first floor to residence for the owner and the rest to rentals.

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Wikipedia