Plaza del Campillo: Lorca’s Rinconcillo

A century ago, the Café Alameda opened its doors on this square. Around 1915 a group of young people from Granada began meeting in one corner of the café, eager to shake up the cultural life of a city they found half asleep. Because of the spot where they sat, their gathering became known as El Rinconcillo, ‘the little corner’.

1A generation in a corner

Among them was Federico García Lorca, born in 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros, in the Vega of Granada, then a student and would-be musician. With him were the painter Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, the historian Melchor Fernández Almagro, the writer José Mora Guarnido and Antonio Gallego Burín, among others. When Manuel de Falla settled in Granada in the early 1920s, he too joined the group. That atmosphere gave rise, for example, to the Cante Jondo Competition that Falla and Lorca promoted at the Alhambra in June 1922.

The circle’s most intense years lasted until the early part of that decade, when many of its members left for Madrid. The café building is now a restaurant that keeps its memory alive.

2A tragic end

In July 1936, when the Civil War broke out, Lorca was in Granada. He was arrested in August and murdered a few days later by the rebel forces, on the road between Víznar and Alfacar, together with other victims. He was 38. His remains have never been found.

The Huerta de San Vicente, the family’s summer house and now a house-museum, is a fifteen-minute walk to the west.

3What to look for

• The corner of the old Café Alameda, now a restaurant.
• The central fountain with its two basins.
• The great plane trees that give the Campillo its character.