Protection and conservation of Madrid’s common commercial graphic heritage
PACO GRACO is a project dedicated to the defense and preservation of Madrid’s commercial graphic heritage, understanding this heritage as an essential part of the city’s memory. Its goal is to safeguard old shop signs from neighborhood businesses that, in recent years, have been dismantled and destroyed on a massive scale.
Since 2017, the Paco Graco collective has been collecting commercial graphics from numerous businesses that close in Madrid, rescuing them from disappearing. It not only recovers handcrafted signs from century-old shops but also those from more recent businesses that barely remained open for a few years. Through these pieces, the project brings back the stories of these businesses and the people behind them, retelling them through exhibitions, tours, web platforms, maps, and documentaries.
This collection, which now includes over 150 signs, can be seen as a graveyard of businesses, a museum of displaced shops and streets, or even a witness to what our public space has been and could become. It serves as a kind of textual palimpsest, a lesson in the history of Spanish graphic design with its aesthetic and political changes, and an exploration of the transformations our cities undergo.
Throughout its journey, this project has connected with a diverse group of artists, historians, designers, and neighbors who have long worked to conserve and highlight this heritage through photography and other artistic practices, as well as through the implementation of public and civic policy initiatives. This network of individuals has united under the umbrella of the Iberian Network for the Defense of Graphic Heritage, seeking to collaborate with similar initiatives on a European scale.
PACO GRACO has been featured in spaces such as the Casa del Reloj at Matadero Madrid (Cuida tu barrio, 2019), La Casa Encendida (Los Rótulos de Paco Graco, 2023–24), and CentroCentro (No va a quedar nada de todo esto, 2023–24). Public interest has allowed the project to expand beyond the design sphere, demonstrating that the preservation of a city’s heritage acts as a social unifier, raising awareness about the importance of preserving the identity fabrics of neighborhoods and cities.
PACO GRACO is an ongoing project because we believe the best way to preserve heritage is to keep it alive. So, if you know of a sign at risk of being lost, contact us.
Will there be anything left of all this?