The Revolutionary War, despite the death throes of the absolutist reign of Fernando VII, gave birth to a new country with a liberal and bourgeois character, open to influences coming from the rest of Europe. Madrid, the capital of Spain, experience like no other city in the transformations arising from this opening and is filled with theaters, cafes and newspapers. Madrid is the romantic, revolutionary outbreaks frequently altered and pronouncements, such as Vicálvaro, 1854, by General dirigdo O'Donnell and initiating the biennium progressive.

But not just cafes and theaters that are changing the face of the city. In 1836 he created the Central University was born as a result of the final transfer of the former University of Alcalá to the capital. In 1850 he inaugurated the Palace of Cortes, the current House of Representatives and the February 9, 1851 Madrid-Aranjuez railway, the second leg of the peninsula. By 1858 the water supply of capital is streamlined, built the Canal de Isabel II, which brings water Lozoya Madrid.

As regards the layout of the city, Madrid suffered no significant change until the mid-nineteenth century, a time when monasteries were demolished and opened new streets and squares, following the seizure of Mendizabal (1834-1855). The first significant growth in the city occurred in 1860, when the bourgeoisie managed the demolition of the close of Philip IV, thanks to Castro and the implementation plan of the extensions. Since the restoration of Alfonso XII, the city is acquiring another character, reflected in the novels and letters of Perez Galdos and Baroja. Madrid already exceeded the 400,000 inhabitants and, as a result of the expansion of the city, begin to create the first public transport. In 1871 he opened the first tram lines, which join the Puerta del Sol neighborhoods distant from downtown.
Still, in the early twentieth century still had more strokes Madrid own an old villa in a modern city. During the first third of the twentieth century the population nearly doubled, reaching more than 950,000 inhabitants. Infrastructure needs that growth brought promoted the absorption, following the radio communication channels, in different towns so far independent of the capital's southwest Carabancheles (Upper and Lower) north of Chamartín Rosa, on the road to Valencia, Vallecas, on the road to Aragon, and Canillejas Vicálvaro, and on the road to Burgos, Fuencarral. New suburbs such as Sales, Tetuan, or Carmen, gave welcoming the newcomer proletariat, while the extensions are installed in Madrid's bourgeoisie.

This new century is an era of anarchist terrorism boom. On May 31, 1906 he married Alfonso XIII Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg. When the procession was leaving the Street, the anarchist Mateo Morral, from No. 88, throws a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers. The royal couple was unhurt but the explosion causes a slaughter around the float. In 1912, the anarchist Manuel Pardiñas killer fired three shots at the bookstore San Martín, in Puerta del Sol, the prime minister, José Canalejas.
The 1920's were years of prosperity, reflected in the opening, in order to decongest the old city, the Gran Via (see: History of the Great Way), in the modern urban planning project developer engineer Arturo Soria, the City linear or extension of the underground railway, the first leg (Sol-Cuatro Caminos) was inaugurated in 1919.