| Royal Collections Gallery | |
| Native Name: | Galería de las Colecciones Reales |
| Native Name Lang: | Spanish |
| Image Upright: | 1.22 |
| Mapframe-Zoom: | 12 |
| Coordinates: | 40.4156°N -3.7156°W |
| Location: | Cuesta de la Vega, Madrid |
| Type: | Art museum |
| Collection Size: | 155,000 artworks[1] |
| Architect: | Emilio Tuñón and Luis Moreno Mansilla |
| Owner: | Patrimonio Nacional |
The Royal Collections Gallery, originally named the Royal Collections Museum,[2] [3] is an art museum in Madrid. Run by the Spanish state agency Patrimonio Nacional, it is located in a new building above the gardens of the Campo del Moro park and next to the Almudena Cathedral and the Royal Palace.
It is intended for the public exhibition and safekeeping of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, luxury objects, carriages and other artworks and historical pieces from the Spanish royal collection, which is also the main source of artworks for the Museo del Prado and several other museums in Spain.
The origin of the museum dates back to the 1930s, when a first project began in 1935[4] and the Foundation Decree of the Museum of Arms and Carriages was issued in 1936 by the government of the Second Republic, when the president was Manuel Azaña.[5] The start of the Spanish Civil War paralyzed the project, which was resumed in 1950 and again in 1980, but it did not come to fruition at either of those times.[4]
Patrimonio Nacional again raised the idea of building the museum in 1998, reviving the idea of creating a new carriage museum but also exhibiting the works of art, jewelry and tapestries of the dynasties that reigned in Spain in recent centuries, the Habsburgs and the Bourbons.
In 2002, the project presented by the architects Emilio Tuñón and Luis Moreno Mansilla (Mansilla + Tuñón) won the ideas contest for the building, and finally construction started in 2006.[6] The works suffered delays due to the discovery of archaeological remains of the 9th-century Muslim settlement in its location.[7] In addition, the central government had to increase the project's original budget considerably.[8]
The main façade is finished in granite of the Spanish; Castilian: Gris Quintana type. This uses stones of great dimensions that had to be emptied on the interior sides to cover the structure of reinforced concrete. The placement of these large pieces was a very complex task, for which a custom-made tool had to be created, which translated into a laying of the first stone as a decisive act. Solid steps, rain gutters, large caps and bespoke tops were made from the same granite.
The construction of the building was completed in 2016, but because of the caretaker status of the government after the 2016 general election, it could not sign the contract of an extra 25 million to finish the interior of the building, and the opening was announced for 2020.[9]
In October 2018, after a year of delays, a temporal cooperation of Empty, specialized in museography, and telecommunications company Telefónica won the public contest for the interior design and presentation of the museum and its collections.[10]
In June 2022, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the chairwoman of Patrimonio Nacional, Ana de la Cueva, announced that the museum would open in summer 2023 and be renamed the Royal Collections Gallery. It opened on 28 June 2023.[11]
The museum building received two main awards: