130 years ago, a Basque pelota match could bring together more than 4,000 people in Madrid. Where? In the legendary Beti Jai, inaugurated in 1894 in the heart of the Chamberí neighborhood. But in this fronton there was no 'Always party', as the Basque expression that gives it its name means in Spanish. In the last years of the 20th century, and despite its privileged location, between the bourgeois streets of Marqués de Riscal and Fortuny, the Beti Jai fell into something worse than oblivion, ruin. On what had previously been the field of 'the Sistine Chapel of pediments', as it was named for its antiquity and beauty, bushes grew and the stands were a place for squatters at the turn of the millennium. However, the fronton is now smiling again. Recovered in different phases since 2011, it reopens its doors permanently this Easter.
The Beti Jai was the most important fronton of the nearly 30 that were counted in Madrid in the last years of the 19th century, when the ball crossed its natural border of the Basque Country, Navarra and La Rioja. Its promoter, the San Sebastian businessman José Arana, wanted to take advantage of the legal loophole in betting at the time and make money with a sport that competed in popularity with soccer and bullfighting and that even hooked members of the Royal House. For this purpose, he built this “commercial pediment” by the architect from Laredo (Cantabria) Joaquín de Rucoba (author of the Arriaga theater and the Bilbao City Hall or the Malagueta bullring and the Atarazanas market, in Malaga), who chose an eclectic style that mixed the neoclassical of the facade, the neo-Mudejar of the side facades and metal and steel on the stands.
In its first decades of life it served for almost everything: auditorium, racecourse, mechanical workshop, plaster and papier-mâché workshop, stage for political rallies and even witness to the staging of some of the most brilliant inventions of Spanish engineering. Thus, in 1904, another Cantabrian, the inventor Leonardo Torres Quevedo, also creator of a mythical ferry that connects the North American and Canadian banks of the Niagara River and which is still in operation, debuted the telekino in the Beti Jai, a precursor technique of remote control. , operating a tricycle located in the middle of the field from the spectators' stands.
Aeronautics
Between January 1904 and June 1906 the place was baptized as the Aeronautics Testing Center and in that facility the cover of the first Spanish airship was designed, which made its inaugural flight in 1908. Even dog fights and rat fights! They saw the walls of the Beti Jai in those years of frenetic activity.
But in 1918 the last ball game was held and in 1919 it was closed to the public to become a workshop for different uses (it was even the headquarters of the Harley-Davidson dealership in Spain in 1923). During the Civil War, it became a police station and prison and after the war, it was used by Falangist music bands to perform their rehearsals there. In 1955 it was acquired by the Citroën automobile company and remained open until 1995. In 1997, a Basque company bought the facility for 2.3 million euros with the aim of holding ball games there again, but none of the Plans that were handled then, such as converting it into a luxury hotel, came to light.
In 2010, the Madrid City Council began the process of expropriation of the property and in 2011 the Community of Madrid declared it an Asset of Cultural Interest. In 2015, the council paid 7 million euros to take over the building and in May 2017 the first phase of rehabilitation was completed; The second concluded in May 2019, the date on which an open day was organized that did not continue. It took five more years to reach the final opening. Now, the city council expects that up to 120,000 people a year can visit this jewel of the capital's heritage.
“This building is absolutely unique, it is a universal symbol not only of Madrid, but of all of Spain,” explains Fernando Rodríguez, curator of the interpretation center that will be inaugurated in three months to explain the vicissitudes of the monument. So shaken by history, “it's a miracle it's still standing,” he concludes.
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