Between 1920 and 1922 the architect Cayo Redón and Tapestry  He made a work for Ricardo Augustín. The work consisted of completely renovating an existing residential building and using it as the owner's home, the result is the Ricardo Augustín Palace House, in the Plaza de Ramales. a name not without doubts, since it has sometimes been called Ricardo Angustias, something that we also did but that a comment from a reader helped us to correct.

The most outstanding thing about the renovation was the increase in height with two new floors. The last of them, a true whim, designed in the manner of a tower with medieval airs, the curious thing is that it was done managing to maintain the symmetry of the façade, so that the whole works very well. In addition, wall paintings and ornamentation of exterior elements such as balconies, windows and corbels were made. Today the building is not going through its best moment, the façade and the wall paintings require attention, but it is still a very attractive building.

Two sad events related to the square where the palace-house is located, the first recent, on July 29, 1994, ETA assassinated the general director of Defense Policy, Lieutenant General Francisco Veguillas, with a car bomb, in the attack His driver, Joaquín Martín Moya, and Cesar García, a 24-year-old stagehand for the “Los ballets de Madrid” company, also died. A tragic event that also left 14 injured and minor damage to the palace.

The other fact comes from much further back in time. Originally, this was the Plaza de San Juan. One of the oldest churches in Madrid was located here, the Church of San Juan Bautista. It was the 12th century and the Church of Saint John the Baptist very popular.

It had several chapels, one of them belonging to the Order of Santiago, a congregation to which the most universal and famous Spanish painter belonged, Diego Velazquez.

Velázquez died in August 1660 and it seems that he was buried in the temple. But Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, during his stay in Madrid dedicated himself to opening squares in the center of the city and ordered the church to be demolished. During the demolition, between 1810 and 1811, the church disappeared, and it seems that so did the remains of the painter. The plaque in the Plaza reminds you,

A abrazo.