Casa de la Panadería

The Casa de la Panadería is a municipal and cultural building on the north side of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid.

After the second burning of the plaza in 1672, the building was rebuilt in seventeen months by Tomás Román, who commissioned painters Claudio Coello and José Jiménez Donoso to decorate the interior and the frescoes on the facade.

In 1988, the Madrid City Council convened a public contest to undertake the decorating of the facade, due to the severe deterioration of the paintings done by painter and ceramicist Enrique Guijo in 1914.

The artists Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Sigfrido Martín Begué, and Carlos Franco were invited to participate in the contest.

Carlos Franco won with a design based on mythological figures such as Cybele, Proserpine, Bacchus, and Cupid, as well as others invented by the artist, interwoven into the history of Madrid and the Plaza Mayor.