Living in El Viso, Madrid

El Viso is a barrio of Distrito Chamartín, in the northeast of Madrid. It forms an almost perfect rectangle bounded by the Paseo de la Castellana to the west, the Avenida de Concha Espina to the north, Calle del Príncipe de Vergara to the east and Calle de María de Molina to the south, covering about 1.70 km2. Alongside the original colonia it now takes in the former Parque Residencia and Iturbe IV estates.

What it is

A garden colony that the city grew around. Between 1933 and 1936 the architect and forestry engineer Rafael Bergamín Gutiérrez, working with Luis Felipe Vivanco, built a cooperative of low-cost houses on land near what were then the heights above the old hippodrome, far outside the built city and on one of its highest points, which is where the name comes from. The result is one of the clearest examples of Madrid rationalism: two-storey single-family houses with flat roofs, white walls and small gardens, laid out on narrow streets. Many of them were bought by writers, architects and scientists of the period, and the interior of the barrio still reads as a village dropped into the middle of a capital. The outer edges are completely different: tall apartment blocks and office buildings face the Castellana, María de Molina and Príncipe de Vergara. Alongside the houses sit the National Museum of Natural Sciences and the industrial engineering school in the same complex, the Residencia de Estudiantes on Calle del Pinar, and the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu.

Who lives here

The wealthiest residential population in the city, and one of the wealthiest in Spain. Company chairmen, bankers, architects, surgeons and diplomats, in houses that pass down within families rather than onto the market. El Viso holds one of the densest concentrations of embassies and diplomatic offices in the city. For anyone looking for a room this matters in a very practical way: the colonia houses are single-family homes and effectively never appear as flatshares, so what does come up is almost entirely in the apartment blocks along the four boundary avenues, and it is priced accordingly.

What it's like during the day

Silent inside, busy at the rim. The colonia streets carry almost no through traffic, which makes them one of the quietest places to live inside the M-30; the Castellana on the western boundary is an eight-lane corridor, and María de Molina and Príncipe de Vergara are heavy east-west and north-south routes. There is no large park, only small gardens and squares, but the private gardens and street trees make the barrio feel greener than its statistics say. The Santiago Bernabéu stands just beyond Concha Espina at the northwestern corner, which is worth knowing on match days.

What it's like in the evening

Very quiet. There are good restaurants along the avenues and around the Plaza de la República Argentina, and a handful of bars, but no nightlife of any kind and no student presence. Evenings are dinner and home. The Auditorio Nacional de Música is immediately across Príncipe de Vergara, so classical concerts are a five-minute walk even though the building itself belongs to the neighbouring barrio. Anything later means the metro south into Salamanca or Chamberí.

Getting around

Good, mostly from the edges. República Argentina, on line 6, is the station inside the barrio. Cruz del Rayo, on line 9, runs under Príncipe de Vergara on the eastern side, with Concha Espina, also line 9, at the northeastern corner. Gregorio Marañón, lines 7 and 10, sits at the southwestern corner, and Santiago Bernabéu, line 10, serves the western side from the Castellana. Just outside the boundaries, Nuevos Ministerios adds lines 6, 8 and 10 plus six Cercanías lines and the direct run to the airport, and Avenida de América adds lines 4, 6, 7 and 9 with the coach station. There is no rail station inside the barrio itself, and the interior of the colonia is a genuine eight to twelve minute walk from any platform.

Eating and shopping

Thin, and this is the barrio's practical weakness. There is no traditional market inside El Viso, and no dense commercial street: the shops are strung along the avenues and around the Plaza de la República Argentina, with supermarkets, pharmacies and a small run of quality food shops aimed at a demanding and unhurried clientele. Prices are high, choice is limited, and most residents do a weekly shop by car or walk south into Castellana for the Mercado de Diego de León. Restaurants are good and expensive, with almost nothing at the cheap end.

When NOT to pick it

If you want a room in a flatshare, if you want anything to happen after ten in the evening, or if you want to spend less than the top of the Madrid range. The stock that suits sharers barely exists here, the interior is deliberately residential to the point of being sleepy, and the everyday shopping is worse than in barrios a fraction of the price. It is the right choice if you are moving with a family or on your own budget, want the quietest streets inside the M-30, and value being able to walk to the Auditorio and to four metro lines; the wrong one if you are looking for a shared flat, cheap food or an evening scene, and for those you should look south across María de Molina to Castellana and Lista, southwest into Chamberí at Ríos Rosas for the Ponzano bars, or southeast beyond Avenida de América to Guindalera, which is the nearest barrio where a room at a normal price is a realistic proposition.