Casa Árabe faces its final days at Escuelas Aguirre amid protests and tension

The main gathering will be this Sunday, 30 August, at 19:00 in Puerta del Sol. The Defensoras y Defensores de Casa Árabe collective has called a Festival of Resistance there, with music, poetry and dance, to turn the institutional conflict into a cultural protest open to the city.

The announced participants include musicians, writers and poets who have been linked in recent years to Casa Árabe's activities. There will also be percussion, violin and a collective Palestinian dabke performance, in an afternoon conceived as a celebration of the cultural work carried out from the premises on Calle Alcalá.

In June, the City Council decided to recover the municipally owned building after the Comunidad de Madrid left the consortium that manages Casa Árabe. The 2008 transfer decree provided that a change in the body's composition allowed the Council to recover the property.

The municipal government also argues that the Escuelas Aguirre have significant structural problems and need thorough refurbishment. Its intention is to recover the building for future municipal uses once the works are completed, although it has not yet specified what activity will occupy the building.

Those who defend Casa Árabe remaining do not question the need to intervene in the building, but maintain that the works could be organised without definitively breaking the link between the institution and these premises. For them, moving it does not simply mean changing address, but losing a space that for almost two decades has become associated with cultural dialogue between Madrid and the Arab world.

The controversy has also acquired a diplomatic dimension. The ambassadors of 17 Arab countries and the representative of the Arab League have publicly defended the continuation of Casa Árabe at the Escuelas Aguirre and consider that the building forms part of the institution's very identity.

The pressure will continue after the festival. On Tuesday, 1 September, the deadline set for leaving the building, Casa Árabe students have called another gathering at 19:00 in the Escuelas Aguirre gardens. Meanwhile, the City Council says that it is working on an alternative plan in case the institution does not hand over the building within the deadline.

The Escuelas Aguirre have been associated in Madrid for almost two decades with exhibitions, courses, cinema, literature and international meetings. This weekend, that link will move from its rooms to Puerta del Sol, while the calendar advances towards a date that may definitively change the relationship between Casa Árabe and one of the most recognisable cultural buildings on Calle Alcalá.

UPDATE: The deadline set by the City Council for Casa Árabe to leave the former Escuelas Aguirre expired on 1 September without the eviction taking place or an agreement being reached with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The premises remained closed to the public and its workers began working remotely, while enrolment for courses remains open and some activities still appear with venues to be confirmed. José Luis Martínez-Almeida accused Foreign Affairs of maintaining an “illegal occupation” of the building and announced that the Council is considering legal action to recover it and undertake the works it considers urgent. Foreign Affairs rejected that accusation and defended the continuation of Casa Árabe, while around fifty students and supporters gathered outside the Escuelas Aguirre to demand that the institution remain at its premises.