Federico and his family resided in this house between 1916 and 1917, which remains in good condition, while looking for a larger one. It is a private property.
The García Lorca family unexpectedly left the house at Acera del Darro, 50 in 1916 and moved temporarily to the apartment at Gran Vía, 34, located opposite Santa Paula street. There they resided for only one year.
The abandonment of the extensive rented house on the banks of the Darro where they arrived in 1908 from the Vega, where Isabel García Lorca was born and the other siblings spent part of their childhood and adolescence, was not voluntary. There were several circumstances that forced the painful move.
In 1917, the Lorca family moved into an apartment located in one of the best streets in Granada, but which left little mark on the lives of its tenants.
On the one hand, the owner put an end to the lease and announced his intention to put it up for sale, but Vicenta Lorca objected to buying it and adding it to the family estate. The place of childhood dazzlement and unforgettable games, of altars and jokes with the maids, of the dovecote and the high rooms, of the first verses and the continuous visits of relatives arriving from the Vega in search of shelter or advice, did not end up convincing her. Vicenta Lorca complained about the work involved in maintaining the garden and wanted a home with fewer demands.
So they decided to rent a more conventional apartment, although the experience only lasted a year and for many of the tenants, especially for the youngest, Isabel, it was an unforgettable blow: “For me it was very painful to return from the country and find myself without a patio, without a garden, without a dovecote, without a laundry room, without the jars, without everything that had filled my wonderful childhood. The kitchen had no chimney, nor the large overhanging grill that overlooked the garden, where I had spent so many delightful moments contemplating it”, she writes in her memoirs.
So when she returned from her summer vacation in Valderrubio in 1917, the family moved into an apartment located in one of the best streets of the city, but which hardly left any mark on the lives of its tenants.
There is no record of the poems and juvenile writings that García Lorca composed there, but in view of the theme and dates, it is possible to think of the Fantasía Simbólica, dated 1917, as a kind of lyrical dialogue in which the following characters take part: The Torre de la Vela, The Darro river, The River or The Voice of Ganivet.
The Torre de la Vela: When I dream so sad and dying it is because I mourn something that is gone forever…. My beloved city was sung by a man so in love with her that I became jealous of him… but when he left the earth his spirit passed by here, he left me his heart in my iron soul … I am the poet’s heart and my sounds are his heartbeat. That is why, when I sound so desolate and melancholic in the nights of Granada, it is because I cry the voice of the one who desired my beloved… Above the Alhambra there was a great golden sway. The trees of the forest stood still and the orange trees dropped their silken fruits…. The lights in the alleys of the Albayzín went out and the Darro river, making an arpeggio, began to sing in a minor key…. The electric vibration was accentuated and a fragrant, passionate and tragic voice spoke….
The Voice: I float here over this nightmarish palace… because I am part of it; I cannot leave this city because I am it (…).
The Darro river: Who spoke? My golden entrails have trembled this night of mysteries. What voice has disturbed my toccatas? Who are you that you speak so passionately?
The Voice of Ganivet: (with the sound of a wilted rose): You lie, you lie; the one in love with Granada was me and my restless and tormented spirit is hidden to see her better in the wounds of the valley.
(Fantasía Simbólica)- Isabel García Lorca. My Memories. Tusquet. Barcelona 2002.
- Ian Gibson. Federico García Lorca. Biography. Grijalbo. Barcelona 1988.
- Lorca´s location
- Lorca’s family home in Gran Vía
- current location
- Gran Vía de Colón, 34
- ADDRESS
- Gran Vía de Colón, 34
- DETAILS OF THE VISIT
Privately-owned building. It can only be seen from the outside.