Reina Sofia National Art Museum

 

Visiting the Reina Sofia National Art Museum is definitely a must if you come to Spain; believe me you will have a wonderful experience.  It is a museum not only for experts on contemporary art, but also anyone who enjoys a day looking at beautiful things that in many instances challenges your beliefs and thoughts about the way we perceived the world.  As a regular tourist I will probably recommend to spend a whole day inside the complex, even try their delicious bocatas at the café.  However, if you have little time in Madrid, you can probably see the most popular pieces of art in the museum in a couple of hours.

Reina Sofia National Art Museum has one of the largest collections of contemporary art in the world today.  The artistic period of the collection is Contemporary and the content is Modern art.  The museum is comprised of several buildings located mostly in Madrid:

-              Sabatini Building

-              Nouvel Building

-              Palacio de Cristal (Cristal Palace)

-              Palacio de Velázquez (Velázquez Palace)

In this particular post I will focus on the Sabatini and Nouvel venues and later on in the summer I will try to post other venues which are located in the Retiro Park.

The Sabatini building was originally a hospital founded in the 18th century but in the late 20th century was remodeled to make it suitable for exhibitions and adopted the name of its first architect, Francisco Sabatini (Palermo, Italy).  This is the main building of the museum and usually exhibits the permanent collections.  The most popular piece of art is probably Picasso´s “Guernica” but the second floor also holds many wonderful Spanish painters from the early 20th century (ex. Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, etc.).

The Nouvel Building is attached through several corridors and halls to the Sabatini building and together they form the Main complex for the whole museum.  The Nouvel building also holds the name of its architect, Jean Nouvel (Fumel, France) and his intention was to create a building that services the Sabatini Building.  Nouvel Building has several exhibition areas, office space for museum employees, a beautiful library, a bookshop, two large auditoriums rooms and a café-restaurant.

There are several admission prices but even the full general admission ticket price of 6 euros is probably the best value I have seen in ages…  Enjoy the Museum and enjoy the pictures…