The Palace, which has been the headquarters of the Ombudsman since 1983, is known as  Bermejillo Palace. Built between 1913 and 1916, on Madrid's Paseo del Cisne, today Calle de Eduardo Dato number 31. History told that he was the architect from Santander Eladio laredo the author of the palace. Work that is considered a masterpiece of the Neoplateresque style, the result of the nationalist current that characterized the architecture of the early 20th century in Spain and that gives us so many examples in Madrid.

That look at a more memorable past of Spain and that sought to recover the splendor lost after the definitive end of the Spanish empire, the loss of Cuba and the Philippines.

The Bermejillo Palace project began in March 1912, when Don Javier Bermejillo del Rey, Marquis of Bermejillo, acquired a property on Paseo del Cisne. The building that, throughout its almost a century of history, has been a family residence, the Embassy of Czechoslovakia, a refuge for nationals during the Civil War, a house-museum and headquarters of official organizations, houses the institution of the Ombudsman.

Perhaps it is also a case where the ombudsman himself would have to intervene, let me explain, we said that the story told that the architect was Eladio Laredo, but it seems that was not the case.

Joaquin Medina Warmburg, in 2005, was researching German architects in Spain for his thesis. Searching the bibliography and German newspaper archives, she found a photo of the Bermejillo Palace on the cover of the magazine Deutsche Bauzeitung of 1924.

In the magazine, the architect Franz Rank, the true creator of the Bermejillo Palace, explained how the marchioness, Mrs. Julia Schmidtlein y García Teruel, (born in Mexico) wanted a palace house in the Spanish neo-Renaissance style. And so it was made, by the desire of a Mexican woman and by the work of a German, one of the best examples of what would be known as nationalist architecture and which was so criticized by the avant-garde at the time.

We can enjoy the result today, even after successive renovations: galleries, towers, grilles, shields and gargoyles, a hyper-decorated, superlative building.

We already know that at that time it was not easy for foreign architects to sign a project in Spain, others had to sign their works. This is what seems to have happened, Laredo limited himself to directing the work of the palace together with Benito Guitart.

We are enchanted by this place when we pass by it and we hope that now we will pay a little more attention to it after knowing a little more about its history.

A abrazo.