The Royal House of the Post Office (Spanish: ''Real Casa de Correos'') is an eighteenth century building in

Puerta del Sol The Puerta del Sol ( English: "Gate of the Sun") is a public square in Madrid, one of the best known and busiest places in the city. This is the centre ('' Km 0'') of the radial network of Spanish roads. The square also contains the famous c ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. It was built for the postal service, but currently serves as the office of the President of the Community of Madrid, the head of the

regional government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

of the Autonomous

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munic ...

. This should not to be confused with the

City Council of Madrid The City Council of Madrid ( es, Ayuntamiento de Madrid) is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the Madrid, the capital and biggest city of Spain. The City Council is composed by three bodies; the Mayor who leads the City Council ...

, which is housed in another former post office, the

Cybele Palace Cibeles Palace ( Spanish: ''Palacio de Cibeles''), formally known as Palacio de Comunicaciones (''Palace of Communications'') and Palacio de Telecomunicaciones (''Palace of Telecommunications'') until 2011, is a complex composed of two building ...

History

In the 17th century there were some thirty two-storey houses in the area currently occupied by the Royal House of the Post Office.

Carmen de Burgos Carmen de Burgos y Seguí (pseudonyms, Colombine, Gabriel Luna, Perico el de los Palotes, Raquel, Honorine and Marianela; Almería, December 10, 1867 – Madrid, October 9, 1932) was a Spanish journalist, writer, translator and women's rights ac ...

(Colombine), (1919)
Los Negociantes de la Puerta del Sol
La novela corta, Año IV, Nº 195 In the 1750s the area was cleared as part of the development of the Puerta del Sol square. A plan for a head post office was produced by the Spanish architect Ventura Rodríguez. However, Ventura Rodríguez, who enjoyed the patronage of

Ferdinand VI , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Philip V of Spain , mother = Maria Luisa of Savoy , birth_date = 23 September 1713 , birth_place = Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Madrid, Spain , death_date = , death_place = Villavici ...

, lost favour when

Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person ...

came to the throne in 1760. The House of the Post Office was designed by French architect

Jacques Marquet Jaime Marquet (born Jacques Marquet, in París, 1710–1782) was a French architect who worked extensively in Bourbon Spain, and whose most important work includes the central plaza of Madrid known as Puerta del Sol and the adjacent monumental b ...

. Work on the building began in the late 1760s. For a time, a tower on the roof was the terminal of one of the

optical telegraph An optical telegraph is a line of stations, typically towers, for the purpose of conveying textual information by means of visual signals. There are two main types of such systems; the semaphore telegraph which uses pivoted indicator arms and ...

y lines of Spain. The building was the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and State Security in

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...

. Dissidents to the regime were afraid of being taken to the basement of the DGS (), where they might be subjected to

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...

Clock tower

On top of the building is a clock inaugurated in 1866 by Queen

Isabel II Isabella II ( es, Isabel II; 10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904), was Queen of Spain from 29 September 1833 until 30 September 1868. Shortly before her birth, the King Ferdinand VII of Spain issued a Pragmatic Sanction to ensure the successio ...

. Its

time ball A time ball or timeball is a time-signalling device. It consists of a large, painted wooden or metal ball that is dropped at a predetermined time, principally to enable navigators aboard ships offshore to verify the setting of their marine chron ...

and bells traditionally mark the eating of the

Twelve Grapes The Twelve Grapes ( Sp. , "the twelve grapes of luck") is a Spanish tradition that consists of eating a grape with each of the twelve clock bell strikes at midnight of December 31 to welcome the New Year. Each grape and clock bell strike represe ...

and the beginning of a new year in most of Spain (the Canary Islands are in a different time zone). These celebrations have been broadcast live on major Spanish television networks including

Televisión Española Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in ...

since 1962.

Km 0

A plate on the ground in front of the building marks the kilometer 0 of the streets of Madrid and the

Spanish road The Spanish Road ( Spanish: ''Camino Español'', German: ''Spanische Straße'') was a military road and trade route in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, linking the Duchy of Milan, the Franche-Comté and the Spanish Netherlands, ...

References

External links

{{Authority control Clock towers in Spain Former post office buildings Buildings and structures in Sol neighborhood, Madrid Time balls Government of the Community of Madrid Francoist Spain Tourist attractions in Madrid Post office buildings in Spain