Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Palacio de Cristal)

The Palacio de Cristal [Crystal Palace] is one of the two exhibition venues that the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía runs in Madrid’s largest city park, Parque de El Retiro. The building was conceived as a greenhouse for the Plants of the Philippines Exhibition (1887), organized at a time when the Philippine Islands were still a Spanish colony. The Palace’s design, by the Spanish architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, bears witness both to an innovate use of materials such as iron and glass, and to the history of 19th century colonialism.

The cast iron columns of the building, combined with large areas of glass and an unobstructed floor plan, create a monumental effect and were, at the time, very innovative, and intended to produce in viewers an impression of phantasy and unreal spaces.

After the Plants of the Philippines Exhibition, during a time the Palacio de Cristal regularly hosted the National Fine Arts Exhibitions. Since 1990, houses site-specific projects and installations by contemporary artists.