Alex Trelinski
A NEW museum in Madrid’s Royal Palace area hosting Royal Collections accumulated since the Middle Ages will open on June 28.
The official opening ceremony will be conducted by King Felipe and Queen Letizia.
The building can be accessed from the Plaza de Almudena and from the Campo de Moro and Madrid Rio gardens with admission free of charge for the first few days.
The structure is spread over six floors with three exhibition halls as well as a cafeteria and spaces for educational workshops.
The museum will house master paintings, tapestries, sculptures, decorative art pieces, armoury and royal furniture collected by Spanish monarchs.
The inaugural exhibition will feature 650 of the more than 150,000 pieces managed on behalf of the government by Patrimonio Nacional, including works by Velazquez, Goya, Caravaggio, Titian and Tintoretto .
Patrimonial Nacional president, Ana de la Cueva, said: “This is the biggest museum project seen in Spain, and in Europe, for decades.”
Besides paintings, there will be pieces from the world’s best tapestries collection as well as ancient carriages and royal furniture.
A third of the works displayed will be replaced with new exhibitions each year.
Ruiz says the Gallery will offer visitors a unique vantage point of ‘the history of the Royal Palaces that are fundamental to the history of Spain and the world’.
The origins of a museum to house Royal collections has quite a history as initial construction started in 1935, but was stopped by outbreak of the Spanish Civil War a year later.
General Franco’s regime seized all Crown properties and put them under the control of a predecessor to the Patrimonio Nacional.
In 1998, the idea for the museum was taken up again and construction of the centre was approved.
The works began in 2006 and were carried out in four phases until 2015.
The building has won several architecture awards including the COAM 2016 First Prize and the FAD Award for Architecture 2017.
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