Urtasun proposes to the Madrid Community, a year later, the joint purchase of Velintonia

In the letter released today, the Ministry of Culture assures that “the symbolic value and significance for the cultural memory of our country of a space like Velintonia is a fact” and has guided all the steps of the department, both in the conversations with the two local administrations involved, as with the poet’s relatives. “With rigor and discretion, as we understand, we must act in these circumstances,” adds Urtasun. The minister assures that his will has always been to “collaborate in the protection of Velintonia”, respecting the regional powers, the will of the heirs and “the deadlines and judicial resolutions.”

Knowing the recent judicial resolution that does not approve the purchase agreement that the Community of Madrid announced in June, Urtasun expresses its desire to join this “new phase” and offers to “provide a definitive solution to this long negotiation” with the joint acquisition of the property, located in Madrid. The Ministry of Culture made this letter public late in the afternoon, a few minutes before the gala of the Academy of Performing Arts of Spain began in Valladolid, which was attended by the minister and advisor.

This letter is Urtasun’s response to another that Mariano de Paco sent to the minister almost a year ago. In February 2024, the Minister of Culture addressed the minister to request a meeting between the ministry, the ministry and the city council to resume the contacts that the previous teams had maintained, without reaching any definitive agreement. The proposal that De Paco then made to Urtasun was that the central government acquire the house and the Community of Madrid undertakes to provide it with cultural activity. During Aleixandre’s lifetime, Velintonia was a meeting point for up to five different generations of poets: 27, 36, 40, 50 and the newest. This cultural activity is what led the Community of Madrid to grant the home heritage protection in 2022.

The house, despite the BIP declaration and all the media noise it provokes, is the property of the poet’s heirs, divided into two branches that have been estranged from each other for decades. This confrontation is what led the 40 percent owners to dissolve the condominium of the property to sell it through a judicial auction. The inevitability of the sale, together with Urtasun’s silence, is what led the Community of Madrid to take the initiative, and in June it announced that it had reached an agreement with the owners to buy the house. At the return of summer, Amaya Aleixandresecond niece of the poet and owner of 60 percent, opposed the operation and asked the court that is conducting the auction to reject said agreement.

Although the ministry headed by Urtasun denies having made any offer at this time for Velintonia, Amaya Aleixandre did declare to ‘El País’ that Cultura was willing to raise the 3.2 million that the Community of Madrid offered; another delaying maneuver in an operation that over the last decades has suffered all kinds of vicissitudes. Without knowing Mariano de Paco’s response to Urtasun, the plans of the Community of Madrid involve bidding in the next judicial auction to be held to take over the house and restore it, with the aim of being able to open it in 2027, coinciding with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize and the centenary of the Generation of ’27.