The occasion was special, so that’s how his celebration should be. at height. In the early 1890s, Spain was getting ready to celebrate an event with a more prominent symbolic charge than ever before: the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America.

It was not just a matter of celebrating the historic milestone of 1492—that was—but also to dust off the imperial album and remember that glorious and not-so-distant past of Spain at that time, which in 1892 was hardly a couple. losing its last valuable overseas territory and with them losing its already greatly diminished status as an international power.

It was about remembering.

And by the way, giving a few comforting touches to his back to fulfill the old adage that all past tenses are better. If only we could do this by showing that we have more ingenuity and power than France… Why not take advantage of the opportunity?

A monument to breastfeeding

It may sound strange today, but in 1892 all these ideas were buzzing in the minds of many people from Madrid. They wanted to celebrate the fourth centennial of the discovery of America in a big way, and they also wanted to build a monument that would resonate around the world and even outshine Gustave Eiffel’s tower in Paris, which was inaugurated just three years ago.

The answer came from one of the most brilliant architects of the 19th century and one of the biggest influencers in the capital: Alberto de Palacio, of French and Basque descent, but already making a deep impression in Madrid. The palaces of Cristal and Velázquez, both located in El Retiro, the headquarters of the Bank of Spain and the Atocha station, had long since left his desk.

Not long ago, in 1891, De Palacio had not been very successful. a pharaoh project In Chicago to build a grand monument to celebrate the 1993 World Columbian Exposition. His bid won the First Prize and a gold medal in the competition initiated by the US authorities, but the plans were not implemented.

Seeing that his proposal was not well received in Chicago, the architect decided to retouch it and try his luck on the other side of the Atlantic, in Madrid. What exactly did he propose? Well, a mass that will outshine the rest of its structures and be lost in itself amongst the most spectacular of European monumental architecture: a massive metallic sphere several hundred meters long to be installed in the heart of the Retiro. And of course a caravel included!

The figures for the project are astonishing even today, thirteen years later. What Alberto de Palacio wanted to plant in the middle of Madrid was a metallic sphere. 200 meters in diameter It would stand on a 100-meter-high pedestal, making the whole comparable to the Eiffel Tower. The Spanish project was completed with the reproduction of a boat that, yes, would allow him to draw a few more meters, thereby surpassing the creation of Paris.

The idea is that the monument serves as a tribute to Columbus and his discoveries: the globe represented the planet along with the continents, oceans and seas. A 700-meter-long and 14-meter-wide walking path will be arranged as the equator line. Not to remain as a simple decoration, the idea was for it to act as a vantage point to Madrid. At the top would be a replica of the Santa María caravel, and inside the enormous structure would be restaurants, meeting and conference rooms, a theatre, museums… A whole universe on a “small” scale.

In the introduction, obviously, a statue of the hero: Christopher Columbus.

The idea excited the people of Madrid – of course they had dimensions to do so -; but its fate was the same as in Chicago. De Palacio’s massive orb collided with a relentless foe: budgetary problems. Just a few years later, in 1898, Spain had to digest the bad gulp of losing Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam after being overtaken by its former colonies, and the United States certainly didn’t help.

Pictures | Wikimedia and Felipe Gabaldon (Flickr)