Madrid Model Prison
The Cárcel Modelo de Madrid (known at the time as Cárcel Celular) was the main prison for men in Madrid during the last quarter of the century XIX and first half of the XX, located in the current district of Moncloa-Aravaca. Construction began in 1877 and it was inaugurated in 1884. The name "Model" was imposed to offer an example and standard to future prisons in other Spanish provinces. Its construction was intended to replace the eighteenth-century Madrid penitentiary called the "Saladero". The prison was operational until 1939 when; After the damage received during the Civil War, the building was demolished. The prison was located in Moncloa in the place that is now occupied by the building of the General Headquarters of the Air Force, built later.
History
The Saladero prison no longer offered sanitary conditions, and it was an objective of the Madrid municipality to build another penitentiary center on the outskirts of Madrid. One of the first architectural projects for the new building, to be located on Alberto street Aguilera, was presented by the architect Bruno Fernández de los Ronderos in 1860; but this new jail was never built. However, his plans served as the idea for what would be built later in Moncloa, already influenced by the architectural theories of Jeremías Bentham.
Construction
It was located in a large block between Plaza de la Moncloa, Paseo de Moret, and Calle Martín de los Heros and Calle Romero Robledo. Its place is now occupied by the General Headquarters of the Air and Space Army, formerly known as the Air Ministry. It was designed by the architects Tomás Aranguren and Eduardo Adaro, both architects belonged to the General Directorate of Penal Establishments. These architects were later in charge of the Banco de España building. The construction began with a stone placed symbolically on February 5, 1877 by King Alfonso XII, and the official delivery of the work took place on April 29, 1884, although it was inaugurated earlier on December 20, 1883 by the Minister of the Interior Francisco Romero Robledo (for homage one of the streets adjacent to the new building is dedicated to his name).
The denunciation of the living conditions of the prisoners
In June 1906, José Nakens, a veteran republican and anti-clerical journalist who had been convicted of "covering up" Mateo Morral, the author of a failed attack against the kings, entered prison. He occupied cell number 7. Four months later he published his first article in which he denounced the subhuman conditions in which the prisoners lived:
I see in this prison men and boys barefoot and even leather. I see as I walk in front of some vent cells, half-reduced jergones, broken, no corn straw just, covered with half a shaft and a head without a backpack full of mugger. I see many windows of the cells without crystals, with the cold it does already, and that the same happens in the large windows of the ships. I see the water drowsy for many days, others mixed with land, and always, until it comes clear, throwing away nauseating smell
The impact of the article was enormous —he received letters that reported abuse of prisoners, punishment cells, illnesses due to poor nutrition, etc.— and he had an offer from the republican newspaper El País for him to continue recounting what he saw in prison, which he later compiled into two books: My time in prison and Cell number 7. In them he also defended the prison reform program of the new prison director Rafael Salillas that put an end to the previous "terrifying and plundering regime." All this made him gain prestige and popularity that ended up forcing the government of Antonio Maura to pardon him, and on May 8, 1908 he left prison.
Environment (early 20th century)
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The Cánovas del Castillo square was renamed the Monoclonal roundabout in October 1890. In 1884 San Bernardo street was opened —which is close to the layout of Princesa street—, which communicates with the Pozas neighborhood. Behind the prison space was a space called "Plaza de la Justicia", a place for public executions. A barracks, Cuartel de San Gil, was established in this square, which was remodeled in 1910. Between 1920 and 1921, the military engineer León Sanchís designed and built the Infante Don Juan Barracks between Paseo Moret and Calle de Martín de los Heros. He would soon acquire the "Model" complaints and claims of collapse, attending not only to urban reasons and the University City would be built.
Spanish Civil War
During the Civil War, it was occupied by militiamen, mainly from the CNT. On August 22, 1936, some of them assassinated politicians and soldiers imprisoned there: Melquíades Álvarez, leader of the Republican Liberal Democrat Party, a right-wing Republican, José María Albiñana Sanz, head of the Spanish Nationalist Party, former ministers of the Republic Manuel Rico Avello and José Martínez de Velasco, the Falangist and pilot of the Madrid-Buenos Aires flight of the «Plus Ultra» plane Julio Ruiz de Alda, General Osvaldo Capaz Montes (who had taken possession of the Ifni territory), General Rafael Villegas (leader initially of the uprising in Madrid), the captain of the Cavalry Fernando Primo de Rivera and Sáenz de Heredia (brother of José Antonio Primo de Rivera), among others. In total, throughout the days of August 22 and 23 they were murdered from 28 to 30 prisoners.
President Azaña was dismayed by the events and considered resigning. The government's reaction consisted of setting up a "Control Committee" in the prison made up of representatives of all the parties and union entities of the Popular Front and entrusting the guarding the interior of the building to the "Rear Guard Militias", who came to replace the officials of the Prison Corps - a measure that greatly facilitated the famous "takeouts" that from that same Model Prison, among others, took place in October, November and December 1936—, and to prohibit the publication by the press of any mention of the murders, giving publicity instead to an official note alluding to a fire in the building, which would have been promptly put out, it was said, thanks to the intervention of the militias. At the same time and also as an immediate consequence of the assault, the so-called People's Courts were created ("We saved ten thousand lives!" —Azaña quotes in his memoirs—, claimed the then President of the Government, José Giral). When the rebel troops arrived at Ciudad Universitaria in November 1936, the prisoners who were occupying it were evacuated from the Modelo Prison; many of them perished in the Paracuellos de Jarama massacres. With some prisoners still inside, the building was very close to the fighting on the Ciudad Universitaria front.
Destruction
The ruins of the building, which had suffered great damage from aerial and artillery bombardment due to its proximity to the battlefront of the battle of the University City of Madrid, were demolished after the end of the Civil War and its function was assumed by the Carabanchel Prison. The Air Ministry was built on its foundations, currently the Air Force General Headquarters.
Features
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The plan of the prison was based on an irregular polygon with six sides and an area of 43,200 m². Popularly known at that time as the fan due to its plan shape. It applied the panopticon model that became so popular during the XIX century, with a rotunda or polygonal central body for the surveillance body of the penitentiary, and radial, through star-shaped galleries that converge in the central space.
The Madrid Model consisted of five ships that converged on a central surveillance pavilion. Each ship had four floors with 50 cells per floor (25 on each side of the central space). In the center of each nave was a covered trapezoidal space illuminated from above. In total the prison had 1200 cells. It also had a series of auxiliary dependencies: house-administration, infirmary and laundry rooms. It was considered a model building for the prison reform started during those years. It was called a cellular jail for being able to offer each inmate a cell.
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