CULTURE
Reina Sofía Museum - Spain’s national museum of modern art, one of most visited museums in Madrid
Baku, May 18, AZERTAC
Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Spain’s national museum of modern art.
It is built on the site of the San Carlos Hospital commissioned by King Charles III in the 18th century.
The building has undergone several stages of conversion over the years to make it into a museum space.
In 1980 Antonio Fernández Alba began work to restore and convert the building, and at the end of 1988 José Luis Iñíguez de Onzoño and Antonio Vázquez de Castro put the final touches to the modifications, whose most striking feature is three glass and steel lift towers.
More recently, a 86,100-square-foot (8,000 sq m) addition to the building added exhibition spaces, an auditorium, a library, cafeteria, restaurant, and administration offices. This addition, completed in 2005, was designed by Jean Nouvel, noted for his ability to create structures that are sympathetic to their surroundings and for his use of steel and glass to play with shadow, light, and form. Nouvel replaced three buildings that lay adjacent to the museum, so opening up a view of the museum’s west facade.
The museum’s entrance is enclosed by a steel-and-glass tower containing lighting and projection screens.
The tower completes a family of towers that surround the museum. The original building’s stone pedestal has been extended into the new museum structure to become the floor of the exhibition spaces, the restaurants, the library, and the offices.
Nouvel’s three buildings sit around a courtyard: the library lies to the south; the auditorium, protocol room, bar, and restaurant to the west; and the exhibition spaces are to the north.
The library captures light and shade from above using suspended, dome-shaped skylights. Steel louvers perforated in calligraphic patterns protect the large panels of etched glass.