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Le Corbusier’s visit to Madrid, invited by the Sociedad de Cursos y Conferencias of the Residencia de Estudiantes, caused great repercussion in the media, orchestrated in most part by the young architect Fernando García Mercadal.

García Mercadal, who had met Le Corbusier in Paris through Christian Zervos, director of the magazine Cahiers d’Art, became his personal “squire” during the visit of the architect in Madrid. In those same days, various publications, not only architectural, but also literary and opinion magazines – among them Revista de Occidente –, devoted their pages to Le Corbusier while he was in the city.

Even though the audience of the Residencia de Estudiantes awaited the arrival of Le Corbusier’s prophetic figure with an unusual anxiety for novelty, the Swiss master did not find or was not able to propitiate in Madrid the smooth relation he had established with Barcelona. Nevertheless, he enjoyed a bullfight and a flamenco show in the capital, he walked round the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, visited the Prado Museum, and travelled to Segovia – where he received once more “the lesson of Rome” through its aqueduct – and to see El Greco’s paintings in Toledo, where he became fascinated by the architecture of the Hispano-Arabic houses. Our country and its sober landscape had an impact on him, as reflected in the numerous observations and drawings on the geography, architecture and the people made in his Spanish carnet in May, 1928.