Open Space, "a real luxury" for children and adolescents in the Quinta de Los Molinos

PLANS WITH CHILDREN IN MADRID

The only cultural center in Madrid for children from zero to 18 years old opens the season with 35 activities between now and December, a very high demand and popular prices

Victoria Torres BenayasMadrid -

“We live very close and we are regulars, on Saturday I bought 12 tickets for the next few months because they sell out quickly. The shows are impressive and the workshops even more so; the toy library, wonderful; and the hosts ―the team that is in charge of receiving and accompanying the visitors―, majestic. This place is a true luxury and its cuisine is super cool”. This is how a user, Estíbaliz Blanco, 44, defines the concept of Open Space, the only cultural, creativity and meeting center dedicated to the public from zero to 18 years of age in the entire Community of Madrid. It is Sunday and Blanco is sitting with her six-year-old son on a kilim in a bizarre place as he alone: ​​the steps of what looks like an amphitheater and is actually an old grass tennis court, presided over by a salmon-colored archery pediment. reminiscent of art deco, in a corner of the park of La Quinta de Los Molinos in the capital, which is home to more than 8,000 almond trees, several unique buildings and two mills brought from the US. Both are fascinated by Quintaneando, an open-air show of the Madrid company Aracaladanza that inaugurates the autumn season of this center.

Between the silences of the music, a baby babbles, wanting to get out of his rug to touch some birds of paradise that peck at the grass while they strut their stuff. "Mom, they are not birds, they are people in disguise," some children correct. On another carpet are Marta Moris, 37, David Ruano, 35, and her two children, four years and nine months old. "We've come several times, my mother lives around here, it's fantastic," explains David pointing to the grandmother, Margarita Gallego, 71 years old. The family only has "one complaint", and a "big one": "That there is not one in each district, because the offer is scarce for the entire city and it is difficult to access the activities".

Until now they had only been able to do a music workshop for babies, although they have enjoyed their free play area for children from 0 to 12 years old, called Urbanoteca, where they can build, jump, stack, climb, read and share games of table, for the moment closed by covid. The one that is open is the Play Quinta, for children from 12 to 18 years old, a cozy den with beanbags, hammocks, cards, games, comics, books and musical instruments.

More informationThe Puppet Theater of El Retiro, a treasure that has been passed down from parents to children for 74 years“Mom, I want to be an archaeologist”

Also in the audience, Laura Neira, 41, and her partner, Ángel del Río, 46, point out the keys to this very special place while their children, aged five and three, watch the dance entranced: “The surroundings, the prices, which are thrown away ―from four to six euros per person―, and their creativity and quality, nothing to do with the typical children's plays”. "Since you come to an activity, you stay in the games room, have a snack and spend the afternoon in the park," they say. In the Café-Jardín, open all day and which is a hotel school for young people at risk of social exclusion managed by the NGO Cesal, they offer everything from breakfast to lunch and dinner with very good value for money. You can also buy food to take away or bring it from home to have a picnic in the park, a walk that, in itself, is very worthwhile.

Once the performance is over, advancing towards the park gate on Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena street, a four-story pink mansion built in the 1920s in a style between Secession and rationalism with regionalist touches emerges like a sweet dream. It is the headquarters of Espacio Abierto, the work of the former owner of the estate, the engineer and architect César Cort. Inside, the decoration, the atmosphere, the idiosyncrasy and the proposals of the house make you feel in Berlin, Amsterdam or Copenhagen. "Well, no, it's Madrid and it's San Blas," responds proudly Beatriz de Torres, its director. The mansion and the park, "inspiring by themselves", belong to the City Council since 1982, which opened the gardens, but forgot about the building. He restored it in 2007 with the idea of ​​turning it into a music school, but it had never been used until "Manuela Carmena visited it, empty, and thought it would be a wonderful home for children."

“It opened in 2018 after a couple of years of work, but we have only been able to do one full season, since we were closed during confinement,” recalls De Torres, who underlines the originality of the project: “There is no other like it, not even in Madrid, neither in Spain nor abroad”. In these years, they have developed "a language of their own to bring knowledge to children in an entertaining and simple way." "It's our spirit and the public and the creators pick up the glove," says De Torres. “It is a space where the absolute protagonists are children and adolescents and where everything is crossed by creation. It is giving them a home where they can recognize each other, share and be inspired to use art as a tool”, she adds.

The second ingredient of success is a "stable program, designed for them, varied, broad and by ages and disciplines, from philosophy to theater and dance, silent movies with live music, cabaret, eighties concerts, masterclasses by the members themselves. artists, circus, edible paint, sensory installations for babies, color laboratory, photography, electronics, programming...”. “We try to broaden the spectrum and the views”, summarizes De Torres.

The director refuses to give visitor figures because she does not like to measure success in numbers, but data is not needed to know that the bet was a necessity and it is a great success, you just have to look at the schedule for the coming months, with 35 activities of all kinds, and see that the tickets "have flown" in a few days. “We have experienced real avalanches of public. We want to be very much from the neighborhood, but also very much from everyone. They come from other districts of Madrid, many from the center, Aravaca and Hortaleza, but also from Tres Cantos, Pozuelo and neighboring provinces such as Guadalajara, Toledo...”, details De Torres, who has a “very stretched” budget of about 550,000 euros per year.

By age, the director underlines "the mega pull" that activities for babies have, since "parents are crazy about finding stimulating proposals" and she confesses that it is more difficult to reach adolescents. De Torres, whose dream is for the project to “multiply”, encourages the City Council to “create a network of open spaces throughout the city”. Hopefully.

Weekend full of activities

In addition to the dance, last weekend there was a photographic 'gymkana', a sensory play activity for babies, which will be repeated on October 23 and 24 and November 27 with tickets already sold out, and an embroidery workshop collaboration with Lorena Olmedo, author of the beautiful poster for the autumn program, who will teach two more activities to show her evocative way of creating paintings based on hand-embroidering old analog photographs. There are still places for the second. For this weekend, they propose five activities, ranging from edible paint to conductive plasticine, theater, a workshop on family legacy and another on artistic experiments. Don't even try, there are no places.

Where: La Quinta de Los Molinos has five gates, the closest to Espacio Abierto is Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena, 20. Price: free entry, activities cost between 4 and 6 euros, with discounts for large families, retirees and unemployed. They are purchased at the box office on Saturdays and Sundays and online. Food: the cafeteria-restaurant is highly recommended, with breakfasts for 2.50 euros, coffees for 1.40 and dishes between 3 and 12 euros, seven of them special for kids. Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, from 10:00 to 20:00. The park is open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter about Madrid.

about the signature

Victoria Torres Benayas

Editor of the Madrid section, she also covers weather information. She has a degree in Journalism from the University of Navarra, she studied the master's degree in International Relations and the countries of the South at the UCM. She has been in EL PAÍS since 2000, where she has appeared on the web cover, breaking news and networks, in addition to being a teacher at her school between 2007 and 2014.

Rules

More information

Take your seats: the autumn season of children's and youth theater begins in Madrid

Victoria Torres Benayas | Madrid

The Tolstoy effect or the wonder of learning to ride a bike

Victoria Torres Benayas | Madrid

Filed in

most seen

1. Madrid begins the transformation of Puerta del Sol in February: goodbye to Renfe's controversial 'whale'
2. Locked in a chest and saved by her cell phone: “I want to go out. Call the police"
3. The pedophile of Instagram: a sexual predator in whose clutches 98 children fell
4. Women over 60 years old wanting more are needed
5. The Juan de Villanueva dam is reopened 240 years later