In case anyone does not know, a corrala is a type of housing characteristic of old Madrid, designed as a corridor house with a general wooden frame, whose balconies overlook an inner courtyard.

If there is a type of Madrid home par excellence, it is the corrala. Although there are examples of them in other cities, hundreds of these humble buildings, initially called “corridor houses” proliferated in the capital over the past two centuries and have passed to the collective imaginary as the prototype of the way of life from the traditional Madrid.

This building typology has its roots in the houses around the courtyard of the Roman villas and in the Spanish-Arabic architecture, and has its closest origin in the popular Castilian and Manchego buildings of the Golden Age, such as the famous comedy corral of Almagro, Built in the 17th century to represent plays and that is still in use today.

In Madrid corralas, the houses are turned to a central courtyard and are accessed through open galleries, usually made of wood. This way of building was extended to accommodate the growing population that moved to the capital from rural areas, due to the industrialization of the nineteenth century, although the first runways had begun to rise several centuries earlier in Madrid.

This is exactly with the secret of which we give good account on this occasion. To find it, you have to travel to Redondilla Street, next to the Plaza de la Paja. This route is known for owning one of the clearest examples of Houses to the Malice of the city (that kind of ingenious construction that Madrid invented to ‘dodge’ the Apartment Royalty). It is at the intersection with Calle de los Mancebos, at Number 13, where we face a pinkish brick building with a soul of black forges. A house that only by seeing it already gives off a historical aroma, of which we like so much.

The building, which belonged to the Duke of the Infantado, is a house of houses and blanket a fantastic uniqueness and that is that inside we can find the oldest corrala in Madrid. This house-corridor was built in 1711 by Teodoro Ardemans, to whom we also owe other notable presences of Madrid such as the House of the Villa. The capital is known for this type of housing, Madrid and its corralas have always gone hand in hand, in these neighborhood galleries an unimaginable amount of memories and moments have come together and the most veteran of all rests inside this house, on the Street Round.