La Tabacalera, Madrid

I’m a street art lover. So when I travel, I always try to combine my visit to the place with the search for urban art works. Most of street art is hidden throughout the city, but nowadays it is possible to find it well exposed right in the center of the cities. Back to Madrid for my Christmas vacations in 2019, I discovered that the central neighborhood of Lavapiés has got the largest number of cultural associations and self-managed centers of the capital. The most popular of all is Tabacalera, a former tobacco factory turned into a collective cultural space.

Built in 1790, the factory was one of Madrid’s first examples of industrial architecture. First used to make playing cards and snuff for the Spanish royal court, the 4-storey building started to produce cigarettes only in 1809, growing throughout the centuries as to become the central processing plant for the state monopoly of tobacco. Tabacalera retains a special place in the history and imagination of the Lavapiés district as in 1809 almost all the workers were women who had been making cigarettes illegally in Lavapiés. The cigarreras, as they were called, were well organized and often rebellious as the popular Bizet’s Carmen opera shows. During an epoch when the place of women was in the domestic sphere, the cigarreras were an exception. Hired for their skills, they started the first women’s union in Spain.

With the decommissioning of all industrial spaces in the early 2000, the Tabacalera was the largest of the 19th century factories located in the center of Madrid which were closing down. Meanwhile, the process of gentrification started in the 1990s, sped up. In an era of gentrification, it was crucial maintaining the local culture; therefore, Lavapiés neighborhood associations, which have a long tradition in Madrid, reclaimed the use of the former tobacco factory as a self-organised social center for the local community. In 2003 it was taken over by the Ministry of Culture who repurposed the building as a center for art and music events. A community garden was also created. During this period, central to the idea of the Tabacalera was the emphasis on participatory democracy. Anyone could use the site — to paint, perform, urban farm, sing, dance — and anyone could benefit from it. In 2010 the Ministry of Culture finally signed an agreement to transfer the use of the Tabacalera to a local association named Centro Social Autogestionado  LTBC. Since then the space hosts several music bands, artist collectives and social activities. Nowadays, it is one of the major spots for cultural activities in the city, especially among the youth.