The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has sent a letter to the Minister of Culture of the Community of Madrid, Mariano de Paco Serrano, in which he points out “the availability of the Ministry of Culture to resume a dialogue that allows the joint acquisition” of the house of the poet Vicente Aleixandre, Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1977. The house, a meeting point between writers of several generations, is in very poor condition and has been the subject of dispute between the different administrations over its possible acquisition in recent years.
Urtasun, in the letter, points out that “the symbolic value and significance for the cultural memory of our country of a space like Velintonia is a fact and has guided, until today, all the steps of this Ministry, both in the conversations held with the Community of Madrid and the Madrid City Council, as well as with the poet’s relatives. “With rigor and discretion, as we understand, we must act in these circumstances.” “It has always been the will of this Ministry of Culture to collaborate in the protection of Velintonia, scrupulously respecting the powers and competencies of the autonomous administration in the field of heritage management, the express will of the heirs and the deadlines and judicial resolutions to which Any action by this ministerial portfolio must be subordinated,” he continues. Last year, the Ministry refused to participate in the two judicial auctions that were opened in January and June for the property. In the June bid, the Government of Madrid offered 3.2 million euros, but that offer was overturned by a court after Amaya Aleixandre, the literary man’s second niece and main heir, opposed it. In the letter, the Ministry points out that the step taken responds to “the recent judicial resolution that clears the purchase and sale process of Vicente Aleixandre’s house and allows the incorporation of the Ministry of Culture to this new phase.” Sources from the Ministry tell EL PAÍS that their position has always been the same: “Collaborate so that the house can be bought and that it is in the public domain.”
The response from the Community of Madrid has not been long in coming. “We received the letter this afternoon and we will analyze it, but it has taken the Ministry almost a year to respond and we have lost precious time, because the house needs urgent rehabilitation. In fact, the minister’s approach takes us back to 2023,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture. A source from the highest rank of the Community of Madrid has been transmitting since the controversy broke out that the regional government would be “delighted” and “happy” to undertake the purchase together with the Ministry of Culture. After receiving the communication from Urtasun, the Ministry of Culture regrets “the time lost” to save a building that threatens ruin, and asks for “time” to study the offer.
“In February 2024, the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports already presented to the Ministry the need to buy Velintonia, given the national and international stature of Aleixandre’s work and career, so that the rest of the administrations could fill it. of cultural activity, but the Ministry never responded to that proposal,” explained a spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture before the possibility of the joint purchase was known. “The intention is to save Velintonia, which has a very damaged roof and must be urgently rehabilitated, in order to reopen it in 2027 as a center of tribute to both the Generation of ’27 and the Silver Age, coinciding with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize and the centenary of the Generation of ’27″, this interlocutor recalled.
The Community, in any case, maintains its offer and will wait for a new judicial auction to bid and buy the house. Its limit remains the same as always, according to a source from the Ministry of Culture: the 3.2 million that were established as the minimum limit to bid, since the regional executives consider that they cannot legally raise the offer any further.
“I don’t care who buys Velintonia,” Amaya Aleixandre, the poet’s great-niece and majority owner of the property (about 600 square meters plus a plot), told EL PAÍS by phone. “The two administrations seem appropriate to me, but, yes, I hope that they get their act together and reach a reasonable agreement.”
Aleixandre recalled that his last conversations about the sale of the house were with the Urtasun department and that a meeting is pending soon to resume negotiations. In any case, the path seems clearer after a judge’s decision last week to rule out the sale to the regional government for 3.2 million, as this administration had offered. The reason for the court decision, as the poet’s niece has recalled, is that she did not agree with that price, while the other owners did. “The judge overturned the community’s intentions because to sell a property at auction there must be an agreement between the owners on the price, and this was not the case,” he added. “The Community had decided to buy it unilaterally with the other owners without having my consent.”
Alejandro Sanz, president of the Association of Friends of Vicente Aleixandre, assures that this type of situation, of letters exchanged between administrations, “has already been experienced.” In the letter, Sanz says, “the Ministry talks about the symbolic value of Velintonia, but there is also a material value. It is a declaration of intentions and we will see what Mariano de Paco (Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Community of Madrid) thinks.” Sanz also points to the third Administration in the running, the Madrid City Council. “We never know what he thinks about this matter or his intentions, when in addition he should have ordered the execution of the works that are necessary in Velintonia a long time ago.”
A week ago, the Ministry announced the purchase of the legendary Casa Gomis de La Ricarda, in Barcelona, for 7.2 million euros. The objective of this purchase is to convert the building into a cultural and environmental center. The house, one of the best examples of rationalist architecture in Spain and a Cultural Asset of National Interest (BCIN), is at the center of controversy over the expansion of the nearby El Prat airport.