Between 1910 and 1936, the Residencia de Estudiantes became a center open to the latest trends in the most diverse disciplines. Prominent artists, intellectuals and scientists went to the Residencia to give lectures, concerts or present their works. Albert Einstein spoke about the theory of relativity and Marie Curie on radioactivity; the archaeologist Howard Carter announced his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen; the composer Igor Stravinsky premiered several of his works in person. The presence in Madrid of these great international figures was facilitated by the relationship that they had with some of the most outstanding Spanish intellectuals and scientists, such Blas Cabrera and Jose Ortega y Gasset, who, along with others like Miguel de Unamuno, Emilia Pardo Bazán and many more, also participated in what Jiménez Fraud called “the chair of the Residencia”.

Psychologists like Jean Piaget, poets such as Paul Valéry, economists such as John M. Keynes, architects like Le Corbusier, physicists such as Maurice de Broglie, and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, among many others, made the Residencia a window open to the artistic and scientific developments that were taking place abroad.

These activities were facilitated by two associations closely linked to the Residencia: the Comité Hispano-Inglés (1923) and the Sociedad
de Cursos y Conferencias (1924).

THE CULTURE LAB II

The Residencia was a center for creation and reflection that welcome the new trends of the 20th century. Some of the most prominent members of the avant-garde movements went there to lecture:

F. T. Marinetti, Max Jacob, Louis Aragon, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna, art historians such as Manuel B. Cossío, José Pijoan, and Wilhelm Worringer; architects Walter Gropius, Eric Mendelsohn and Theo van Doesburg. Luis Buñuel organized a series with films by René Clair, Jean Renoir, and Jean Epstein. The French theatre company The Fifteen, and the Teatro Universitario La Barraca also performed there; Buñuel and Dalí produced and performed Don Juan Tenorio; Alexander Calder presented his Cirque. There were also lectures about avant-garde stage production, such as the one given by the Futurist artist, Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Ravel, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Wanda Landowska gave concerts, as well as the young Spanish composers, the Grupo de los Ocho, who premiered their work at the Residencia. Manuel de Falla, a frequent visitor, performed his puppet opera El retablo de Maese Pedro and the ballet El amor brujo.