Madrid: between what is visible and invisible
Visiting a city is not the same as taking your time carefully to fully understand it. When you pay attention and plan a more comprehensive visit, art and the city become alive elements capable of telling us its own story. We just have to learn how to listen to them. And to manage to comprehend that story, some kind of translation is needed: a mediator figure, an expert, who connects the knowledge with those who receive it and who offers quality information.
To explore Madrid with them, noticing the details, will favor a profound reading of the territory in record time. Through diverse itineraries, we aim to change significantly your view of the city –no matter if you are a visitor or a local–. However, when you take a look and not just see things, that is when the apparently invisible finally materializes.
Madrid hides a universe full of symbols behind its frenetic metropoli façade. These messages can go unnoticed on first reading, but we want them to not get lost between the noise of the city. The façades in buildings and monuments, the hidden elements inside the churches, the seemingly neutral monuments, they all respond to a clear intention, and hide some secrets that we get to understand when we read between the lines.
¿Why an expert figure?
To us, one of the most important elements within a visit is the accuracy of the information. It is not about sticking to a single truth, the truthfulness we defend has to do with cross-checking different sources, separating myths from facts and offering tools that encourage critical thinking.
Legends and myths are also a very important part of history, but a trained figure will know how to contextualize them and use them as a way to heighten the discourse, not to confuse the public.
In a reading of buildings, paintings, façades, an expert gaze can introduce us to the interesting world of iconography, which hides a symbolism that can go unseen. Another of the strong points we find in the expert is its capacity of analysis and connection between monuments, artists, artworks, characters and so much more. This figure is in charge of knitting those invisible strings and presenting a bigger and more complete narrative.
Moreover, a vast knowledge about certain topics allows us to talk straightaway about the invisible. Evincing what is gone nowadays and investigate why is an essential part to comprehend the city and how it became the place we inhabit now.
Because what we do not see also matters. Absence, changes, the erased, the highlighted, the re-signified: all of that shapes the living history of Madrid, and what could be better than having a guided visit with Voilàrt? A tour that will make this symbolic language accessible to all audiences.