Iglesia del Buen Suceso

The history of this building has been investigated by many scholars: Antonio Palomino, Ponz, Madoz, Mesonero Romanos, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna.

Its foundation is confirmed on 1529. in a bull of Pope Clement VII on 28 January 1529, in which after name him Administrator, was recognized to him powers to reform and again issue any pius statutes and licits and honests ordinances not contrary to the Sacred Canons.

The hospital is built in the area that was in the eastern part of Puerta del Sol, a space that had been occupied by the old Hermitage and shrine of San Andrés.

From an architectural point of view the conditioning of the modest hospital did not have any other particular compared with the eighteen health facilities existing in that time in Madrid.

In 1567 demolished some walls of Carrera de San Jerónimo and were confiscated neighbor houses and that do nothing than consolidate the zone area.

Philip II entrusts to the Police Board of Madrid to build a new church and nursing in the place of the Royal Hospital, appointing for that to architect Diego Sillero and other officers.

Diego Sillero, along with his father, had dedicated to other buildings in the city, although that designs would come from the study of Juan de Herrera.

The first description of the church in the Puerta del Sol is that made Fernández Herrera to describe the Bernadino de Obregón's life: ... it has built a grandiose building, put in the best of Madrid at the gate called del Sol, at beginning of that they call carrera de San Jerónimo and at the end of the famous Calle Mayor (...) the church bordering the square, as well locked in the curtain that serve of lonja its entrance to the building, with a colorful and capable guardrail, gracefully dilating between the two streets of Alcalá and San Jeronimo, with a colorful and opulent façade, turning its backs the hospital building by both hazes, with great eminence in trace and form ...After these other descriptions of several authors as Pedro de la Torre, Ruiz de Altable, among others.

But the years passed after this event and it was not until 1839 would again completely reform under the direction by Narciso Pascual Colomer that aims to design the church to accommodate to the architectural preferences of the time.

[citation needed] Due to the reform of the Puerta del Sol, on 24 February 1854 the demolition of the church and the hospital began.

The church disappears completely from the Puerta del Sol, in its place is constructed the Grand Hôtel de París, which after in mid-20th century receives the famous "Tio Pepe" neon sign.

Under Amadeo I "the Gentleman king", el Buen Suceso become to depend administratively by the General Directorate of the Royal House and Heritage, which imposed the obligation to prepare annual budgets.

During the Spanish Civil War in full defense of Madrid, the church is closed and the hospital continues functioning.

This meant, in fact, the liquidation of the historic Patronage, by depriving of its essential purpose, even if, in law, it has prolonged its existence until today.

The religious cult continues until now, thanks to the agreement signed by the National Heritage and the Diocese of Madrid-Alcalá, whereby is ceded the building for the operation of the new parish of the Blessed Corpus Christi in the Iglesia del Buen Suceso.

On 22 October 2006, to commemorate the fourth centenary of the discovery of the image, in a ceremony celebrated by Antonio María Rouco Varela (Cardinal Archbishop of Madrid, José Luis Huéscar Cañizal (episcopal vicar), the Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso's pastor, Miguel Jimeno, and the Ukrainian Greco-catholic Community's chaplain, Ivan Lypko, is canonically crown the statue of Our Lady of Good Success in the parish.

This current building is popularly called, ironically and contemptuously, in derogative as "Our Lady of the Magefesa" linking its shape with a toaster.

[4] Ruiz de Altable mentions that the church building: possessed eighty feet long, sixty wide and rises in corresponding height.

Image of the Iglesia del Buen Suceso, and at right the Convento de Nuestra Señora de las Victorias .
Drawing of 1790 with Fountain del Buen Suceso (on top of it was the Mariblanca ) and behind the church Iglesia del Buen Suceso between calle de Alcalá and Carrera de San Jerónimo. To left starts calle Montera. Madrid.
Image of the Church in the Puerta del Sol to background in 1854 (just before the big reform of the Puerta del Sol).
The uprising of May 2 had like protagonist the Puerta del Sol.
(Second) Iglesia del Buen Suceso in Argüelles neighborhood, engraving published in 1868 in El Museo Universal .
Current building in Princesa 43.
Interior view of the first Iglesia del Buen Suceso in Argüelles neighborhood, half-finished drawing by Federico Ruiz, published in El Museo Universal in February 1868.