A century of the Casa del Libro and the Gran Vía in Madrid

In 1923 more than 50% of Spaniards could neither read nor write. The few who had access to this fundamental basis of knowledge therefore read a great deal of philosophy and classical literature. The first step, therefore, was to teach literacy before generalising access to the many and diverse worlds provided by reading. 

It was in that year that the Casa del Libro was founded, whose retrospective exhibition has been installed in the Eugenio Trías Library, the former Casa de Fieras del Retiro in Madrid, and which can be seen coinciding with the Book Fair, whose gigantic snake of stands stretches along the old Paseo de Coches of the most universal park in the Spanish capital. 

Javier Arrevola, general director of Casa del Libro, gave Atalayar the honour of inaugurating the signing book for the event, followed by Peridis, Rosa Montero, Javier Sierra, Carme Chaparro and Marta Robles, who opened the testimonies that visitors to the exhibition will be able to express.

Arrevola linked the fate of the Casa del Libro to the history of Gran Vía itself, the main artery of the city that has gone from being a small village to becoming one of the main cultural capitals of the world. Thousands of photographs contained in the copy published for this centenary give a full account of a gigantic evolution, marked by tragedy and the destruction caused by the Civil War, but always alive and moving.

Several panels also display the pages of the House's successive books of honour, in which the most outstanding and best-selling authors of each period and time wrote dedications and signatures, and among which it is easy to guess their character from the texts, drawings and graphology.