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 Museo Reina Sofía | |
 Interactive fullscreen map | |
| Established | 10 September 1992; 33 years ago (1992-09-10) |
|---|---|
| Location | Madrid, Spain |
| Coordinates | 40°24′31″N3°41′38″W / 40.40857143°N 3.6939961°W /40.40857143; -3.6939961 |
| Visitors | 1,643,108 (2021)[1] |
| Director | Manuel Segade [es] |
| Public transit access | |
| Website | www.museoreinasofia.es |
| Official name | Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía |
| Type | Non-movable |
| Criteria | Monument |
| Designated | 1978 |
| Reference no. | RI-51-0004260 |
TheMuseo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre";MNCARS)[n. 1] is Spain's national museum of20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named forQueen Sofía. It is located inMadrid, near theAtocha train andmetro stations, at the southern end of the so-calledGolden Triangle of Art (located along thePaseo del Prado and also comprising theMuseo del Prado and theMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza).
The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include collections of Spain's two greatest 20th-century masters,Pablo Picasso andSalvador Dalí. The most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's 1937 paintingGuernica. Along with its extensive collection, the museum offers a mixture of national and international temporary exhibitions in its many galleries, making it one of the world'slargest museums formodern andcontemporary art. In 2021, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic restrictions, it attracted 1,643,108 visitors, up 32 percent from 2020, but well below 2019 attendance. In 2021 it ranked eighth on thelist of most-visited art museums in the world.[2]
It also hosts a free-access library specializing in art, with a collection of over 100,000 books, over 3,500 sound recordings, and almost 1,000 videos.
The museum is mainly dedicated to Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include collections of Spain's two greatest 20th-century masters,Pablo Picasso andSalvador Dalí. Certainly, the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's paintingGuernica. The Reina Sofía collection has works by artists such asJoan Miró,Eduardo Chillida,Pablo Gargallo,Julio González,Luis Gordillo,Juan Gris,José Gutiérrez Solana,Lucio Muñoz,Jorge Oteiza,Julio Romero de Torres,Pablo Serrano, andAntoni Tàpies.
International art represented in the collection include works byFrancis Bacon,Joseph Beuys,Pierre Bonnard,Georges Braque,Alexander Calder,Robert Delaunay,Max Ernst,Lucio Fontana,Sarah Grilo,Damien Hirst,Donald Judd,Vasily Kandinsky,Paul Klee,Yves Klein,Fernand Léger,Jacques Lipchitz,René Magritte,Henry Moore,Bruce Nauman,Gabriel Orozco,Nam June Paik,Man Ray,Diego Rivera,Mark Rothko,Julian Schnabel,Richard Serra,Cindy Sherman,Clyfford Still,Yves Tanguy, andWolf Vostell.
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The building is on the site of the first General Hospital of Madrid.King Philip II centralised all the hospitals that were scattered throughout the court. In the eighteenth century,King Ferdinand VI decided to build a new hospital because the facilities at the time were insufficient for the city. The building was designed by architectJosé de Hermosilla and his successorFrancisco Sabatini who did the majority of the work. In 1805, after numerous work stoppages, the building was to assume its function that it had been built for, which was being a hospital, although only one-third of the proposed project by Sabatini was completed. Since then it has undergone various modifications and additions until, in 1969, it was closed down as a hospital.
Extensive modern renovations and additions to the old building were made starting in 1980. The central building of the museum was once an 18th-century hospital. The building functioned as the Centro del Arte (Art Centre) from 1986 until established as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 1988. In 1988, portions of the new museum were opened to the public, mostly in temporary configurations; that same year it was decreed by the Ministry of Culture as a national museum. Its architectural identity was radically changed in 1989 byIan Ritchie with the addition of three glass circulation towers.
An 8000 m2 (86,000 ft2) expansion costing €92 million designed by French architectJean Nouvel opened in October 2005. The extension includes spaces for temporary exhibitions, an auditorium of 500 seats, and a 200-seat auditorium, a bookshop, restaurants and administration offices.[3]Ducks Scéno was consultant for scenographic equipment of auditoriums and Arau Acustica for acoustic studies.[4]
Reina Sofía has other two places where several exhibitions usually take place. These are theCrystal Palace and theVelázquez Palace, both inRetiro Park.
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The museum features, as a major location, inJim Jarmusch'sThe Limits of Control (2009).
In the 2003 Spanish filmNoviembre, the school entrance scenes and some performance scenes were shot in the square in front of the museum.
Media related toMuseo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía at Wikimedia Commons
