Furious row erupts over Madrid site of one of Robert Capa’s most important pictures

City council accused of sidelining Peironcely 10 campaigners who have tried for years to turn building into centre celebrating the war photographer’s work

One winter’s day almost 90 years ago, the Hungarian-American photojournalist Robert Capa paused on a street in southeast Madrid to take a picture that would echo around the world and down through the decades.

In it, three children sit on a rubble-strewn pavement in the working-class Vallecas district of the Spanish capital. Behind them squats a plain, single-storey house pitted with the shrapnel of a fresh bombing raid.

Not only did the picture, which appeared in the international press, confirm the civilian cost of the aerial campaign waged by Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini in support of Francisco Franco’s coup, it also rallied international volunteers to the anti-fascist cause.

But in recent years, the photo, which was taken in late 1936, has found itself at the forefront of a push to rehouse the 21st-century families who were living in the cramped and squalid confines of 10 Peironcely Street, and to preserve the building as a place of historical memory.

While the tenants have long since been moved to better accommodation, Madrid’s conservative city council has now abandoned the plans drawn up by its leftwing predecessor to turn the site into a space that commemorates Capa’s work and the bombing terror of the Spanish civil war.

Rather than create a standalone Capa museum, the council has decided to turn the property into a youth centre – due to open in 2028 under the name the Robert Capa Cultural Experimentation Centre – that will feature a small space dedicated to the building’s history and the photographer’s part in it.

In doing so, it will sideline the local Save Peironcely 10 platform that fought for years to get the families rehoused and to secure the building’s preservation, and instead hand the project over to a local youth organisation, the José María de Llanos Foundation.

The U-turn has left campaigners baffled and angry.

José María Uría of the trade union Fundación Anastasio de Gracia, who has coordinated the platform’s efforts to save the building and rehouse its tenants, attributes the rethink to the current leadership in the city’s culture department.

“They’re acting in a kind of rather opaque way,” he said. “They’ve done this without talking to anyone and we’re all very surprised to see them acting like this … They were very keen on it before and then there’s been this 180-degree turn, which also obviously points towards a kind of opacity when it comes to question of the city’s [historical] memory.”

The International Centre of Photography (ICP), which serves as the custodian of Capa’s legacy, objects so strongly to the new plans that it is threatening to refuse permission for the photographer’s name to be used in connection with the new project.

In a letter sent to the city council last week, the ICP expressed its enduring support for the efforts and achievements of the Save Peironcely 10 platform.

“While we deeply respect the value of social work, Peironcely 10 is an irreplaceable site of universal historical significance,” it said, adding: “[We] will NOT authorise, endorse, or permit the use of Robert Capa’s name, image, or photographic legacy for any centre, exhibition, or project located at Peironcely 10 that is not led, approved, and managed in full agreement with the Save Peironcely 10 platform.”

As a consequence, the letter went on, “any attempt to associate the name of Robert Capa with this new municipal plan will lack international backing and institutional legitimacy”.

The ICP’s position is shared by the Capa House museum in Leipzig, Germany, which was established at the site of another of the photographer’s most famous images, and which had hoped to twin with the Madrid site.

“This house in Madrid could be a crown jewel of work for peace and international cooperation,” it said in a separate letter to the council. “This is impossible anywhere else in Madrid, as the iconic and world-famous photograph of the three war-scarred girls in front of the house at 10 Peironcely was taken by Robert Capa at this very spot.”

The council said it was taking legal advice on whether or not to retain Capa’s name, but insisted it would always respect the photographer’s legacy. It also said the purpose of the proposed new centre was more important than its name.

“The new space aims to become a centre for cultural experimentation, especially for children and young people at risk of social exclusion, offering them tools to develop their creativity and use culture as a vehicle for inclusion, learning, and opportunities,” it said in a statement.

“The centre will also include a space dedicated to the memory and historical context of the building, which was the setting for the photograph taken by Robert Capa during the Spanish civil war, depicting three children affected by the ravages of the conflict.”

The Save Peironcely 10 platform has described the new plan as a political “manoeuvre” that would undermine “a decade of community, academic, and international work to create the Robert Capa Centre for the interpretation of the air raids on Madrid”. The lack of a proper memory site, it added, would also dash hopes of bringing tourist and visitor revenues to what is still a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

As a compromise, the platform has said that the centre, in its originally envisaged form, could be placed under the auspices of Madrid’s municipal history museum. It has also suggested teaming up with the José María de Llanos Foundation to help it find a different venue for its “necessary work” so that both projects could proceed independently.

“The platform has already demonstrated its social commitment by securing dignified rehousing for the 14 vulnerable families who were living in squalor in the building,” it said. “Vallecas needs the José María de Llanos Foundation, but there is only one Peironcely 10 in the world. We will not allow a social organisation to be used as an excuse to destroy this unique opportunity.”

Uría, meanwhile, still hopes the council will change its mind and return to the plan for which he and so many others fought so hard and for so long. While Capa’s picture eventually ended up on show at the Reina Sofía museum, such honours still elude the humble house he immortalised nine decades ago.

“We’re not asking for a massive budget,” said Uría. “Only a little bit of will.”