Furious row erupts over Madrid site of one of Robert Capa's most important pictures

"In it, three children sit on a rubble-strewn pavement in the working-class Vallecas district of the Spanish capital. Behind them squats a plain, single-storey house pitted with the shrapnel of a fresh bombing raid. Not only did the picture, which appeared in the international press, confirm the civilian cost of the aerial campaign waged by Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini in support of Francisco Franco's coup, it also rallied international volunteers to the anti-fascist cause."

"Rather than create a standalone Capa museum, the council has decided to turn the property into a youth centre due to open in 2028 under the name the Robert Capa Cultural Experimentation Centre that will feature a small space dedicated to the building's history and the photographer's part in it. In doing so, it will sideline the local Save Peironcely 10 platform that fought for years to get the families rehoused and to secure the building's preservation."

Robert Capa's 1936 photograph of three children amid bombing rubble in Madrid's Vallecas district became an iconic image documenting civilian casualties during the Spanish Civil War. The building at 10 Peironcely Street, where the photo was taken, housed families in poor conditions for decades. After residents were relocated to better housing, Madrid's leftwing city council planned to preserve the site as a historical memorial to Capa's work and the bombing campaign. However, the conservative city council reversed this decision, opting instead to establish a youth center opening in 2028 with only a small dedicated space for the building's history. This decision has angered local preservation campaigners who fought for years to secure the families' relocation and the site's historical preservation.

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